


Sun in the Labyrinth

by Raeliyah



Category: Exalted
Genre: Abyssals, Deathlord, F/M, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Near Death Experiences, Original Character(s), Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-06-09 20:23:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 27,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6921946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raeliyah/pseuds/Raeliyah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Solar Exalt living on the Blessed Isle is guaranteed a complicated life, and a dangerous one. When that Solar has also taken up residence on Mount Meru, the Imperial Mountain, Sacred Peak of the Immaculate Order - well, complicated begins to be an understatement. Throw in a Deathlord attempting to subvert the Pole of Earth, and... </p><p>Pyrrhus and his Circle are old Solars. They've been Exalted for a decade - which on the Blessed Isle, stronghold of the Scarlet Empire, is quite old indeed. A Deathlord has decided to turn their home into her personal obsession, and things have finally come to a head. While some of his Circle has gone off to seek out ancient powerful magics and more allies for the Final Battle, Pyrrhus remains behind, leading a campaign to interrupt the Deathlord's plans and stall until his Circle returns.</p><p>But of course - the Deathlord has other plans for her favorite Zenith. And they include a little trip to the Labyrinth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lift's Last Ride

**Author's Note:**

> This is a mid-campaign fic for the Storium/Exalted game Adamant Codex. All the characters have long and involved backstories, and we’ve diverged from 2e Canon in some things. This fic, in particular, is a big piece of Pyrrhus’ metaplot / epic motivation. So if some things don’t make sense, assume there’s backstory justification for it (which I am more than happy to explain, if asked - no, please, give me more reasons to gush about my characters and their campaign).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This started as a character development writing prompt ("You're locked in an elevator with your character") and kind of snowballed from there...

(link to the storium game: [Adamant Codex](https://storium.com/game/adamant-codex/chapter-1/scene-1))

“Oh - Please! Hold the door!”

A girl - young woman, really, in her early to mid twenties - was rushing towards the Manse of the Lightbringer, clutching the trailing skirts of her dark blue ao dai in one hand as she ran. Her dark blonde hair was escaping in wisps and tendrils from her braid.

Pyrrhus stepped forward, lifting an armored arm to bar the door of the lift from its automatic closure. The girl skidded into the Manse and ducked under Pyrrhus’ arm, clutching a sheaf of papers and notebooks and huffing. He smiled and dropped his arm; the lift’s door closed smoothly with an essence-powered hum.

“Thank you,” she panted, leaning against the far wall of the lift as it began to climb to the top of the manse. “I’m supposed to interview with the Lightbringer but I was nervous and completely lost track of time. I mean - meeting one of the Solar Exalted! I’m just a mortal with not even thaumaturgy  and they’re just so -- oooh. you know? Big and shining and powerful...!”

Pyrrhus cleared his throat behind a closed fist, eyes averted but crinkled with restrained laughter. The girl’s yellow eyes studied the floor through the flush of her embarrassment. She wasn’t conventionally pretty, with a prominent nose and a round-cheeked face, but her smile, when it came, was quick and easy, showing a lot of even, white teeth.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the girl said. “I guess you must see him every day and here I am rambling...”

“I do, but it is alright. You aren’t the first.”

“I’m Rael, formerly of, well, a slave of house Tepet; what’s your name?” She looked up then, when it was clear he wasn’t put off by her enthusiasm, and smiled in a shy, friendly way.

Pyrrhus couldn’t think of a way to ease the way so he shrugged and smiled at her. “V’neef Pyrrhus.”

“Oh- oh. Ohmigods.”

He watched the realization hit her with a sinking feeling; despite efforts, most mortals viewed himself and his Circle-mates as celebrities, as if they were above the rest of the inhabitants of New Meru, akin to the gods. Especially on the Isle, where they had been conditioned since birth to believe the Dragonbloods were their rightful superiors... and if Solars were above Dragonbloods, what did that make of mortals? Then, he realized, the sinking feeling wasn’t all internal. The lift...

The First Age lift was supposed to convey people and luggage swiftly and smoothly to the top of the Manse. Instead, three-quarters there, it screeched and rumbled, coming to a stop with a jerk. And then the light failed.

The mortal girl panicked quietly in the corner. Pyrrhus could hear her gasp and shrink back, the ring on her finger clinking softly against the metal rail. He frowned for a moment, and then essence flooded his chakras and light emanated from the simple golden disc on his forehead. “Well, this is unexpected.”

She laughed weakly, not letting go of the rail. “That’s one way of putting it. What… do you think happened?”

Pyrrhus glanced around the lift car; just big enough for eight if they didn’t mind crowding. Occasionally the lines etched into the top of the walls would flicker with light, but it was still mostly black. “Likely the Mistress of Bloody Charities has interrupted one of the dragonlines feeding the Manse. Raksi or one of the Geomancers will fix it shortly, or the Mountain itself will re-assert its own reality.”

“Oh.” The girl slid down the wall, tucking her knees to her chest and dropping her head between them. “That sounds like it will take awhile.”

“Twenty or thirty minutes, at most, I imagine. Depends on the level of disruption.” He paused to look at the back of her head. “I didn’t have a chance to ask, before, but are you new to the town?”

“Oh, yes. We came up with Lady Angelline last season.”

“Ah. And you did not leave with her?” Angeline and her caravan of civilians and non-combatants had left the Mount by way of the Jadeborn tunnels three weeks ago, taking with them the Sun Chosen from the east. Pyrrhus hoped they’d be able to get him the real army they needed, to defeat the Deathlord Mistress.

“No - my husband took the Second Breath of Mela just before we arrived, and stayed to fight. I won’t leave him. He’s probably helping with the Defense Grid repair right now.” Her breathing was evening out.

“Very brave of you.”

“N-not really. But you - You are the Lightbringer...”

Pyrrhus winced. “Please. Just - Pyrrhus.”

“S-sorry. I hadn’t actually met any of… you … yet. Let me just take my foot out of my mouth...” He could almost feel the red heat of her flush again. “I thought you must be a Prince of the Earth, in the red jade armor...”

Pyr shrugged, muscular shoulders rustling the scale mail that he wore habitually these days, never knowing when an attack would come. “My family always thought I would take the Breath of Hesiesh. Now that you have met me, though… and it appears we have some time… is there anything you’d like to know?”

“Uh…” She lifted her head to stare at him, flabbergasted. Pyrrhus imagined his face had looked much the same when Sol Invictus had collected him from Arlen, during his brief trip to Yu-Shan those many seasons ago.

Pyrrhus dropped to her level, reaching out his hands to her, resting them on her shoulders when she made no move to reach back. “I’m not a god. I’m not perfect, nor infallible. I can die, and if Akaris doesn’t return soon, that death will likely not be far away. I am human, and mortal, just like you.”

“Says the man with a torch on his face,” she murmured. But she unbent a little.

The lift groaned again, and shuddered, keening dangerously as it dropped several inches. Rael grabbed for Pyrrhus instinctively, palms slipping off the smooth red jade. He pulled her close, quickly folding over her to protect her. But the lift held, and though it groaned again, it wasn’t going to drop yet.

“I can also be terrified,” Pyrrhus quipped, “though I’d say I have more practice at it than most, and hide it better.” He took a deep breath, then another, to still the surge of adrenaline that had dumped into his system. Rael was ghostly pale beneath the warm sunlight of his caste mark, and he moved to sit beside her against the wall. She shifted her death grip to his forearm, and he patted her knee reassuringly.

“Right…” She followed his lead in breathing, and the shaking in her fingers eased. “Provided the lift doesn’t kill us… Uh. What do you do when you’re not saving townsfolk from powerful necromancers bent on destroying Creation?”

“As in, my free time?”

“Yeah. Sure. For fun.”

Pyrrhus gave a very un-heroic snort of laughter. “I can’t remember the last time I had ‘free time’.” He rearranged slightly, gently lifting her fingers from his arm and instead tucking her hand under, his right hand over her fingers, as if he were escorting her into a formal gala event instead of sitting in a dark and possibly dangerous elevator. “I suppose I’d like to go tend my vineyards in Juche with my wife, play with my son - domestic things. And preach on temple days, of course.”

“P-preach?”

“I _am_ a priest in the Immaculate Order,” he said gently. “Most find that somewhat of a contradiction. Most also are not privy to the earliest scriptures of the Order. It has changed a great deal, and not for the better.”

“It sounds like you have to explain that a lot.”

“I do. So often I wrote a book about it... though I haven’t had a chance to have many copies made.”

“I’d like to read that. I came because of a different book, but... well, I’m not sure I agree with it anymore.”

“One of Gaelen’s? ‘The Author’? I’d be happy to lend you one of mine... there’s a copy up at the control room - nng!” Pyrrhus had raised his hand to gesture at the top of the lift, but his braid caught on a scale as he moved, yanking out a section of blonde-red hair and tangling it. “A downside of long hair,” he muttered, letting go of the girl’s hand to reach back and free the offending snarl.

“Tell me about it.” Rael patted her own braid, which reached down nearly as long as Pyrrhus’s.  “May I fix it for you?”

Pyrrhus glanced back over his shoulder at her, the light from his caste mark casting deep shadows over his eyes. “I am not sure--”

“Please? Giving my hands something to do - well, I would feel better.” She smiled weakly. “And it’s not often we in the town have a chance to do you a real service.”

Pyrrhus looked deeply uncertain, and suddenly shy. He was used to the inviolability of his self, having never been much for displays of physical affection. Most touch he received, other than the occasional brush of Angelline’s cool fingers and their marriage bed, was aimed at killing, hurting, or otherwise beating him. For one other than his wife to touch him with nothing but simple care? (He did not add, even in his thoughts, “while he was conscious,” though waking up beneath the hands of a Dragonblood medic while the Battle of the Underworld raged around him swirled briefly in his thoughts.) “I... suppose. If we are to be trapped here awhile longer...”

“I’ll be gentle,” Rael promised, and scooted forwards to undo the tie of his braid. “I don’t suppose you could make some light behind you...?”

“No, but -” Pyrrhus shifted the flow of his essence with a moment’s concentration; his caste mark faded but a soft glow of light floated from his anima instead, so that noon-day sunlight emanated from him, shrinking the shadows in the car to nothing. “Does that help?”

“Yes, thank you!” Rael tucked the tie under one knee where she could reach it, then began combing her fingers through his braid, undoing it and making the strands lie flat. He’d begun shaving the sides of his head as a concession to usual Immaculate Monk styles, so only a strip down the middle of his head was still long. It started platinum blonde at the top and shaded through golden blonde and finally to deep red at the tips, down in the small of his back - or in Rae’s lap, while he was sitting straight-backed in front of her. She rose a little, to start the new braid from the top. “What was it like, then? Being Chosen?”

“You do not have the gift of essence, do you?” Pyrrhus asked, keeping very still as he spoke so as to not mar her work. The urge to twitch as she tugged and twisted was strong, but he had spent five months meditating on the top of this mountain - sitting still for five minutes was as easy as breathing.  

“No. I never showed any aptitudes towards the occult. I was a body servant to a Tepet Lady.”

“Mmm. Well - being Chosen... it is like drinking sunlight, and finding you have fallen in. It should be blinding, should be unbearably scorching... but instead, it is like you have come home, and that light and heat are your natural state. And then, He speaks to you.” Pyrrhus smiled in remembrance, and the glow of his anima brightened slightly. “And suddenly you find that things that were previously difficult are now incredibly easy - sometimes too easy. Once it was a struggle for me to invoke some of the katas of my martial arts. And now I can do it as easy as I breathe. It does mean that there are entirely new sets of difficult things, though.”

“Like a deathlord?”

“Yes, _her_.” Pyrrhus took a deep breath through the nose, frustration seeping out into the gesture. “And - knowing who to trust, when it is or isn’t appropriate to use all that power...”

“Look down a little, please?” Rael had reached the base of his skull; as he obediently looked down, she finished the last few inches of braid so they lay flat against his head, and then took up the long fall of it, twisting that into a tidy, tight queue. “Thank you. How do you know that? Um - if I were not trustworthy?”

“I can tell. There are essence-fueled powers --” Pyrrhus said over his shoulder. “And - no offense - the unEnlightened have no way to hide. You’re likely not an agent of the Underworld or Malfeas; you have none of their taint. You have spoken truth to me every time I have heard you - here, and earlier.” His anima throbbed slightly. “Also, I prefer to believe in the good, first - barring some exceptions.”

“That seems rare enough among the unEnlightened, let alone other exalts.” Rael trapped the end of the tail in one hand, seeking for the tie with the other and securing it neatly when she had. “I don’t suppose all Solars are like that. There, done.”

“Thank you.” He ran a hand lightly over her work and smiled. “And no, not all Solars - or even most - are like that. Though I suspect the pair that visited from the East might be close.” He rolled onto one knee easily and made to stand, but the elevator swayed alarmingly, keening again. The lights flickered on briefly. Rael sprawled backwards at the unexpected motion and Pyr sat down again gingerly, helping the girl back to a more dignified position.

Rael concentrated on Pyr’s hands bracing her arms and tried to breathe. They were nice hands. Not overly slender, not blunt and square, but well-proportioned... maybe a little long. His nails, like the rest of him, were clean and trimmed short, with a little raggedness at the cuticle testifying to too long in the field. The calluses of a swordsman were most prominent, slightly roughened by the grip of his weapons, but a scribe’s callus on his right middle finger was still visible. The leather of his bracers peeked out from under the red jade armor, framing his wrists. “I hope they fix that soon.... Are there stairs...?”

“Not accessible from here. But yes.” Pyrrhus glanced again at the ceiling, as if by looking he could make everything work again. Waiting wasn’t usually hard for him - he could always meditate - but it would be rude to shut Rael out like that. Nor was he terribly great at being reassuring. Perhaps now would be a good time to...? He shifted slightly and Rae’s knuckles went white against his armor.  He pried her fingers off and held them gently, saying quietly, “I won’t let you come to harm. You are safe with me.”

“I hope you have magic for that, because a four-story drop doesn’t sound very safe to me,” Rael replied, and to her evident horror, her voice broke on the ‘drop.’

“And yet, here you are, in a city under siege by one of the most powerful entities on creation, volunteering in her defense.”

“I was supposed to be the one asking you questions.” She relaxed a little and Pyr let go of her hands; they immediately went to the hem of her overdress and fidgeted with it, absently twisting and rolling the smooth silk cloth. “But... I was supposed to be interviewed, wasn’t I.”

“You’ve already passed that.” Pyrrhus smiled and ventured to stand again; this time the car held with no groaning or keening as he moved slowly and smoothly to his feet. “Have you any guesses as to why I wanted to interview you?”

“N-no... not really.”

“I need allies. Friends who can work the controls of the Manse, set up defenses and protect my people, when I and the other troops are called away to fight.” He helped draw her to her feet; the lift squeaked but didn’t move. They faced each other across the car, feet spread for balance. “There are very few still in the City who did not leave with the civilians and aren’t already fighting. You are one of them. And your partner speaks very highly of you.”

Pyrrhus drew essence from his anima into the hollow of his cupped hands. It hung there: a glowing pool of wispy golden mist, lapping the tops of his fingers and drifting down in tiny tendrils. His own anima dimmed to the barest haloed glow, clinging to skin and armor. “Rael - will you help me? Will you accept the gift of enlightenment and the responsibility which comes with it?”

“Wh-- you can * _do*_ that?” One hand reached out tentatively, as if the offering would disappear or be withdrawn.

“I can, and I will.” Pyrrhus smiled gently. “But I would have your permission, first.”

“Oh... yes. Yes. Please.. I will.”

Pyrrhus lifted both hands and poured the heavy golden smoke over her head. The essence clung to her like oil or honey, dripping over her skin and hair in thick rivulets. Rael stiffened - the essence sharpened and brightened, turning a deep shade of citrine amber, and sank into her skin. Her eyes rolled up, showing nothing but white, and her limbs gave way as she went suddenly limp. Her papers and notebooks scattered all over the marble floor.

Pyrrhus, prepared for this reaction, immediately dropped to one knee, catching her before she hit. He slid an arm under her knees and picked her up smoothly. Unlike the more... natural... process of Enlightenment, the Solar gifting of opened chi flows was rather disruptive to the system. She would wake shortly. Carrying her was no more strenuous than carrying his son to his Exalted strength.

The lift’s lights flickered again and it swayed alarmingly under his wide-planted feet. He had no skills to see another’s Essence, but he could feel it with the interaction of his own - and it would forever be colored with Solar aspected power. The flows began to settle and her eyelids fluttered as she began to rouse, a few minutes later.

“Uh... w... Tha...” The girl raised her hand slightly, clearly still out of it, but coming around. Pyrrhus set her down gently but kept a supporting arm around her waist until she found her feet.  

“It will pass. Wait a moment.”

“Oooh.” Rael braced her elbows on her knees and dropped her head slightly. “That... well, maybe drinking fire, not sun... but... Wow.”

As she regained her balance, Pyrrhus drew away slightly, but kept an eye on her in case she threatened to fall. Rael took several long, slow deep breaths before straightening, gingerly. She stared at her hands as if they would burst into flames, or the veins would light up beneath her skin. “Now what...?”

“Now, you are enlightened. You can learn charms, empower rituals - and in the more immediate use - I can introduce you to the Manse.” He cocked a skeptical eyebrow at the ceiling of the lift, then turned his attention back to her. “And - do you know any martial arts?”

“N-no... not really.” Rael was gathering up her scattered papers, suddenly shy and avoiding his eyes. Her essence flows were jumpy and uneven as she accustomed to them.

“Well, if you are going to help defend New Meru, you may need them. Here, I’ll show you... May I...?” He took the gathered papers and notebooks from her, setting them in the corner; the lift squeaked but didn’t move. They faced each other across the car, feet spread for balance, and Pyrrhus began to show her the simplest katas of the Path of the Arbiter. “The martial arts,” he started, gesturing for her to mirror his movements, “... are a movement-based meditation. Lose yourself in the movements, repeat them until you can do them without thinking about it, until your body knows them better than you.”

Rael followed, mimicking his slow and careful kinesics. They did this in silence for long minutes, Pyrrhus occasionally correcting her stance or action with a touch. He dwarfed her by at least three hand spans in height and six stone of muscle, not including the armor, but moved as gracefully as a simhata. Finally, not stopping her motions, Rael asked: “This isn’t how it works against bad guys, is it?”

“No,” Pyr said wryly, “Then it’s a bit more like this. Stand back?”

Rae obligingly flattened herself to the wall of the car. Pyrrhus checked the available space then went through the kata he had just shown her, but blindingly fast. He kept going, through that one again and many more forms, until essence began to trail from his fists and feet as he whirled and ducked, scale mail rattling softly. “Were I actually fighting,” he said between chops of his straightened hand, “I would direct essence into the forms, and thence into my opponent.”

He ended with a double jab, as if he held swords, into the floor of the car, balanced lightly on one knee. His essence sparked against the golden floor and the car shuddered, hummed, and began to move. Lights came on with a flicker. Pyrrhus rose again, startled.

“I think you intimidated the elevator into working.”

“Perhaps I should have led with that.” He settled into a more sedate stance, a trifle flushed and discomfited, but acting as if the elevator had done nothing out of the ordinary and it had merely been a very long ride to the top. Rael came out of her corner and snatched up her papers, also flushed from going through the katas, and waited beside Pyrrhus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the charm (Soul-Enlightening Beneficence) states the target will be unconscious for their stamina in hours (which would be 1 for Rael, here) but that's not as interesting for story purposes ... >_>


	2. Orichalcum Does Not Bend

The door opened to reveal Raksi awaiting them, leaning casually on a control panel. A feral grin spread across her face as she took in the pair. “And you a married man, Pyr.”

Rael went bright red. “N-n-no, nothing - nothing happened, he was just-”

Pyrrhus ignored the jibe completely and strode out of the car, twitching his bracers back into place. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d show up. What happened?”

“Strike team coinciding with another of those waves - she has awful timing, that woman. Those dragonblood of yours nabbed the strike team, and the Mountain took care of her, again.” Raksi yanked out a bench and pointed to it pre-emptorily. “Thankfully, this means we have the necessary time now to do your tattoos. Off with your shirt. Oh, and who are you, dearie?”

Rael had edged out of the car and stood to one side, looking around the room. Caught flat-footed by Raksi’s request - and the abrupt appearance of the Elder Lunar in her face, said Lunar having leapt over the bench and now nearly nose to nose with her - she just stared and stammered, “Uh...”

“Lady Raksi, please meet mistress Rael, lady of Tepet Siaj. She’s enlightened, and here to be introduced to the Manse should the need arise.” Pyrrhus was loosening the straps on the bracers and shucking them off, piling them on an armor stand to one side.

“Oh, well, in that case.” Raksi blurred, her features abruptly turning masculine, and she/he bent over Rael’s hand for a brief peck. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Here, Rael.” Pyrrhus indicated a seat and graciously pulled it out for her, in front of an intimidatingly large adamant panel. He turned to one of smaller panels near it and said in a much more commanding voice, “Manse. Add Mistress Rael to the authorized users, and familiarize her with the defensive and offensive systems.”

“Yes, Lawgiver,” replied the manse in an even, androgynous tone. “Mistress, please place your hand on the panel in front of you.”

One of the panels lit up helpfully with an outline of a right hand, and Rael followed its instructions. And continued to do so, as part of her attention was on the rest of the room. It was clearly at the top of the tower, as large adamant windows looked out over the rest of the city. One of the windows was partially open and a breeze had blown back the gauzy curtain that could shield it. Must be how Raksi had gotten in?

One third of the octagonal room was taken up by control panels and other First Age interfacing tools, none of which Rae could name. Another third housed the windows and an open stairwell heading down into the tower, and an open floor inlaid with only slightly damaged mosaics.

The last third held a large desk, several bookshelves, a long couch, and a low table. From the scattered papers and books, a covered tray on the table, and a half-finished letter on the top of the desk, it was clear that this is where Pyrrhus had been living since Lady Angelline had gone back down the mountain. The Manse chimed gently for her attention and Rael turned back to the panel reluctantly.

“Off with your armor, Zenith! All of it. You’ll be sitting here for several hours while I put these things on, so you’d better be as comfortable as possible.” Raksi, back to female, in a practical cotton crop-top and gi-pants, her red hair pulled into a loose knot, stood again behind the bench she had pulled out.

“Alright, let me change.” Pyrrhus had finished undoing the lacings of his armor and shucked the scale mail off like a long tunic, then pulled off the greaves and plated boots. All he wore underneath was a sweat-stained quilted gambeson, padded pants, and thick padded tabi socks. After arranging his armor on the stand and a quick apologetic glance at Rae, he jogged lightly down the stairs.

Raksi arranged her tools on the counter beside her - a large round pot of nearly-molten orichalcum, an array of hollow metal needles and tiny blades, and another small pot of green-smelling salve. Each of her tools were covered with long lines of occult script, and essence shimmered faintly from them, in a way that Rael could now, finally, see. Raksi hopped far too high for her apparent size and strength to the ceiling fifteen feet up, twisting open a skylight Rael hadn’t even noticed. The full light of the sun streamed down, brilliantly illuminating the bench and workspace.

Pyrrhus re-emerged a few minutes later, clean and damp from a quick scrub, clad in soft loose deep green Rus pants and wide leather belt, a softer green tunic folded over his arm, which he set on the end of the bench along with a towel. He picked up a book from the desk and handed it to Raksi, pointing out a particular passage. “If you can, would you use this phrase as the carrier script?”

“Do Justice, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly with your God?  How perfectly predictable of you. I should warn you, words have magical significance. Doubly so when they’re part of an essence-infused tattoo. Do you really want to live by this? Sit!”

Pyr’s eyebrow rose as he arranged himself to her satisfaction, his back bare to her needles. “I do aim for consistency - and I already do live by it. Or attempt to, in the imperfect way of men.”

“So be it. Manse, play all of Jubilant Butterfly’s suites. Begin with the *Fourth Requiem for A Starfall*, and loop.” She climbed onto the counter and settled, Pyr’s shoulders resting between her knees.

“Request acknowledged.” Soft strains of instrumental music - harps and flutes, mostly, with the occasional carillon - began to fill the air of the Tower, ebbing and swelling like a tide.

“First Age classical?” Pyr asked, twisting to look at her.

“Reminds me of studying,” Raksi shrugged, then dipped the first needle into the urn of gold and smacked Pyr’s shoulder lightly to make him turn back, shoving his head lightly forward and flicking his braided queue away to expose the broad expanse of his back. “Helps me concentrate. Now hold as still as you possibly can.”

Pyr’s pained inhalation was the only indication she’d begun, and for a long time the only sounds were the long-dead composer’s music and the Manse’s quiet prompts as Rael studied the systems. The sunlight streaming in slanted across the floor and began to redden before Rael finally stood and stretched and the teaching panel dimmed and went out.

Pyrrhus still sat on the bench, hands loosely open palm up on his knees with his eyes closed. Rael edged near enough to watch as Raksi dipped her instrument into the pot and drew it across the Solar’s skin - drops of blood welled in its wake, obscuring the newly laid line of near-molten orichalcum. Again and again, the Lunar dipped and drew, in her own sort of trance, and silvery essence echoed her movements and settled into the wounds. Looped across Pyrrhus’ back, from the swell of one shoulder to another, were the lines of old High Realm script in thin golden strokes, hedged by long lines of orichalcum. Raksi was going back over each one, thickening the lines and reinforcing their magic. The Solar’s eyes opened a hair, sensing the nearness of the girl’s presence as she leaned over him, staring fascinatedly.

“Isn’t that painful?” she whispered, once she noticed him watching her.

“Excruciating,” he assured her in a hoarse grunt, taking deep breaths through the nose before closing his eyes again.

“Can I bring you anything? The Manse is done with me for now.”

“Water, if you please,” he rasped. A trickle of blood rolled down his shoulder and across the curve of his deltoid muscle as Raksi worked on the character there.

“Stop... talking.” Raksi said, not pausing in her work. The essence lights began to flicker on around the room, the window closed automatically, and the skylight irised smaller as the sun set and the shadow of the mountain fell over the city. “Stay... still.”

Rael hummed assent and ran lightly down the stairs, casting a skeptical glance backwards at the elevator.

She returned shortly with a large carafe of cool water, a couple of glazed pottery cups and another covered tray. Pyrrhus took a cup without looking, using the arm not being worked on, and tossed the water back. He still earned a growl from the Lunar - a very convincing, reverberating sort of growl. Rael refilled his cup and retreated to the couch in his workroom.

 

\--

 

The girl left sometime before midnight, when Raksi switched to Pyrrhus’ chest. He wasn’t really paying attention to much past his own skin by then. The Lunar continued the loop of characters, making a long shallow curve across the top of his sternum from shoulder to shoulder, so that both sets lay on him like a chain of office. These were far more painful, across the collarbones, and sweat broke out as he struggled to keep within the pain-enduring meditation. On a regular mortal, shock would have set in long since, but his Exalted nature was working against him, and so he felt it all.

“You don’t... have much experience... with this kind of pain... do you?” Raksi breathed at one point near dawn, when he’d twitched a little too hard away from her in purest instinct.

“No,” he panted shallowly, trying to keep still, “...aside from training, and the Battle of the Underworld... I’ve been rather lucky...” And even in the Underworld, he’d fallen unconscious too quickly and been supernaturally healed before he’d even registered pain.

“Hopefully... you won’t... have much chance... to get used to it,” she grinned, tracing another line. “Few more hours... then we’re done.”

They lapsed back into silence, the music still playing softly in the background. Dawn broke quietly over the eastern forests, bathing one half of the mountain in pale pink light. The artificial lights of the manse dimmed one by one as the Sun’s light streamed back into the room from the three big windows. Pyr gingerly poured another cup without turning, offering it first to Raksi, who shook her head, before drinking it down himself.

At noon, when the full light of the sun poured down through the open skylight and struck glints off the bloody tracks of metal, Raksi drew the last of the orichalcum from its pot and finished off the last character on his right shoulder. Pyrrhus was trembling with reaction by then, though he’d valiantly tried to keep it from marring her work in those last few hours.

“Done.” Essence flashed as she sealed the wound with a clawed fingertip. She took the rest of the ewer and poured it ceremoniously over his abused chest and shoulders. Steam rose from the still-hot metal script. “Orichalcum fights so much harder than moonsilver. Had you been a Lunar, that would have been done by yesterday’s sunset.”

“Would that I had been a Lunar,” Pyr repeated quietly, patting the towel across the new-laid tattoos. Blood and scorch marked the soft fabric, and he stared at the cloth. Raksi, who did not appear to have spent a day and a night at a laborious magical working, was scooping green salve out of her second pot to smooth across them.

“Go rest,” she suggested when she’d finished. “I’ll send that girl up with food by sunset.”

Pyr nodded and dragged himself over to the couch, collapsing onto his back with a groan. He was asleep before she’d even polished off the contents of the previous tray.


	3. New Riverbeds

Pyrrhus slept all the rest of that day and through the night, waking when the dawn streamed in through the windows. Someone had draped a blanket over him, and his workspace had been tidied. Another pitcher of water was on the table, next to a cloth-draped plate which proved to contain a cold rice-egg-and-vegetable dish. He nearly inhaled it; a ravenous hunger waking at the sight of food.

Eating meant moving, and moving meant pulling on the healing tattoos. The metal embedded in his skin, though attuned to him, still felt strange and not yet part of his body - it pulled and caught tight, like a day-old sunburn. The wounds in which the metal lay were tender and he felt them begin to bleed again when he moved too far, warm wetness trickling down his chest. He ignored it in favor of food - it wasn’t incapacitatingly bad - and noticed Raksi’s pot of salve still on the counter.

He was holding it in one hand, judging the weight of its contents and how he could reach the script across his back when Raksi and Rael came up the stairs, followed by a woman-shaped solid shadow.

“Let me do that,” Raksi called. “You’ll hurt yourself worse, reaching that way.”

The Zenith handed over the pot with a little bow, a small hiss escaping his teeth as it pulled at his back. Raksi tsk’ed at him and ducked under his arm to apply the salve again, Rael following at her heels like a shy puppy.

The shadow-woman stepped neatly around the puddle of sunlight on the floor to peer at the Solar. “Impressive. I didn’t know that could be done with Orichalcum.”

“Hello, Sifu,” Pyrrhus smiled. “You’re out and about early.”

“Special dispensation.” Five Days Darkness grinned, teeth and eyes showing whitely in the darkness that was her face. She flicked a hand at him, showing off a set of moonsilver and starmetal rings, each engraved with a symbol of a Maiden. “Someone has to help keep Creation from falling into the Abyss with you out of commission.”

“Let me just get into armor and I’ll be ready--”

Raksi interrupted him with a snort. “Have you tried any charms yet?”

“No, but I don’t see why --”

She stepped around in front of him and with a quick pass of her hand smeared the last of the salve across the front of his chest. He winced and gasped at the brusqueness. “Try one.”

Pyrrhus focused on her for a long moment, then shrugged - grimaced - and settled into a martial arts stance. He closed his fists then stared down at them, eyes wide, as though expecting to be holding something.

“I don’t understand,” he murmured, looking back up at the elder Lunar, startled. “It is as if I were riding Sorin down a trail in the forest, but the way is blocked - a tree has fallen, and the undergrowth has grown up all around it. I can see further landmarks past it, but the trail is gone.”

“I told you: the words of the tattoo - infused with essence as they are - would have significance. They’ve changed the ways of your chi, and it will have to reset. To use a river analogy - your essence must find a new bed.”

He growled, tiredly. “Had I realized, I might have chosen another time for this.”

“I did warn you, when we spoke of the possibilities.” Raksi held one eyelid gently shut with a finger and leaned forward, peering at him with the other. “If you don’t push yourself, I judge you’ll settle by the end of the week. In the meantime, Five Days Darkness will be covering the gap.”

Pyrrhus sank down on the nearest bench. “My thanks, Raksi; Sifu.”

“I get to play in sunlight - thank *you*.” Five Days wiggled her fingers, the ambient light flashing off her rings like twinkling stars. “And I’ll have it out of your hide later, anyways. Saving the word doesn’t get you out of lessons.”

“Of that I have no doubt.”

 

\---

 

“You’ve healed quickly, Master Pyrrhus,” Rael said, a hand of days later. She was carefully dabbing the last of the salve across his shoulders, covering the new pink skin around the metal characters with a thin layer of greenish cream. “No more bleeding, no signs of infection, and the orichalcum seems to have settled into your Essence - I can see it’s not stiff anymore.”

“No, and it doesn’t feel alien anymore either. And I’ve been able to use charms since last night.” Pyr rolled his shoulders - the salve made his skin feel ice cold, and gooseflesh rippled across his back.

Rael’s hand lifted from his skin and he could practically sense the “oh really?” expression of raised eyebrow. “No, I’ve not been exerting... much.”

“I am sure you have impeccable self-control and could not possibly be impatient and wishing to go back to the fight before you are able,” the girl said. There was a ceramic clink as she set the pot down and handed Pyrrhus his tunic.

“Of course not,” he replied, slightly muffled as the soft fabric went over his head. “That would be irresponsible.”

“Alright, pretty boy!” came Raksi’s voice ricocheting up the stair well. “Time to put it to the test. Scouts just reported an invading force from the north. Armor up.”

“On my way.” Pyrrhus took up Rael’s hands and dropped a courtly kiss on their back. “Thank you for all your help, mistress Rael. Duty calls.”

Rae dipped her head. “Go get ‘em, Master.”

He smiled as he vanished down the stairs and Rael crossed the room to the Manse command consoles to monitor and help direct the defenses.


	4. Thunderstruck Concurrences

Pyrrhus took advantage of a pause in the rhythm of battle to wipe the sweat from his brow, shoving the brim of his helmet back. The next heartbeat he ducked a skeleton warrior’s axe, catching the creature’s wrists in his free hand and twisting precisely. The skeleton dropped its weapon with a crack of mangled bones. Pyr hammered down on its skull with his other hand, both sword pommels smashing through its cervical vertebrae.

Mistress had chosen the timing of this attack well, Pyr mused, as he transferred a sword back to his free hand. A century of mixed shadowland troops, supported by a full cohort of elite units and led by a pair of Deathknights had poured down the mountain just after the last Shadowland wave. Meru’s defenders had been tired and expecting a respite, as had been the pattern for the last weeks after he'd received his new essence-bearing tattoos. But Mistress, of course, had not followed it.

Pyrrhus was dancing to one of those deathknights, tearing through ghosts and skeleton warriors on his way. The holy light of the Sun poured from him like flowing honey, oozing through the air and burning the Underworld around him. He slapped aside the reaching claws of a zombie beast of some kind and took a grazing blow across the back of his armor from its other paw. It gave him the opening he was looking for, and he opened the creature’s throat with a backhand slash. Ichor and gore gushed from the open laceration, barely missing Pyr’s red scaled coat. The beast collapsed with a gurgle.

The Deathknight was nearly fifteen steps from him, silently regarding the course of the battle from the back of a skeletal warhorse, plated in blackened armor. A Nephwrack hovered at the Deathknight’s plate-mail clad elbow, whispering in his ear. Occasionally the knight would nod and wave a hand, and the troops would shift.

A shriek and an eddy in the fighting drew Pyr’s attention as he burned through another squad of ghosts. They had brought down and captured one of his young water aspect followers, dragging him back towards the Knight. Dacre was clearly out of power, and terrified. His armor hung in shattered pieces of black jade.

Dacre caught his gaze over the heads of the warriors and held it for a long moment. The Underworld forces turned to see what he saw and Pyrrhus seized his chance. Like opening a gate in a dam, he let a wave of essence crash through his anima. A phoenix of sunlight, fire, and heat waves burst from his anima, sending enemies tumbling back in an explosion of wings. Another undead beast - something like a simhata, badly mutated, with saber teeth - snapped at him. He shouldered a skeleton warrior into the beast’s path; the beast’s teeth snapped shut with a crunch of bone.

With a gesture, Pyrrhus called in the phoenix. It spiraled down into his blades, condensing and thickening to a single hard layer of crystallized brilliance. He struck at the beast and shards spun off in every direction in a blinding flare. Every underworld warrior and mangled animated beast within ten long steps fell, shredded by shards of materialized divine sunlight.

The Deathknight scrambled off his collapsed mount, backing away on his elbows from the softly shining Solar. Every suddenly-still corpse convulsed into ash and purifying flame as Pyrrhus walked towards Dacre. The water aspect panted and sagged, suddenly released from his captors.

“Go,” Pyrrhus murmured as he approached, one eye on the knight. “Back to New Meru, as fast as you can.” Pyrrhus looped an arm under the Dacre’s, and a Zenith caste mark flashed briefly on the Dragonblooded’s skin as Pyrrhus channeled a double handful of precious motes into the Dragonblooded’s essence reserves. Dacre straightened suddenly, exhaustion sluicing off his features.

“I can help -” Dacre muttered back, pulling up the pieces of his armor and glaring at the curiously still deathknight.

“No - live to fight another day. **Go**!” Pyrrhus gave the younger man a little shove back towards the center of the city, towards the fortifications. An echo of Solar authority wove through his voice, and the Water Aspect folded to it, turning and running back downslope. Muted booms and shrieks of fighting several ruined streets over reverberated through the ancient stonework.

Pyrrhus immediately focused his attention on the Deathknight, stalking over the scattered ash of former troops. He stopped just out of arm’s reach, planting both still-incandescent swords in front of him. The anima around his shoulders thickened slightly, like a mantle, as Pyrrhus stepped into the stance of the Arbiter, preparing his Judgement. The Deathknight shivered and drew his knees up, almost seeming... relieved?

“Deathknight! I am V’neef Pyrrhus. Lama of the Immaculate Order, Guardian of the Center, Protector of New Meru. As Master Arbiter I stand in judgment over you. This is your only warning. Repent! Cease your death dealing, become a protector of life and virtue and you will be spared.” His anima sharpened, the shadows it cast becoming knife-edged and as deep as the Western Seas. “Refuse this mercy and you will be struck down and cast into Lethe.”

“I accept,” murmured the Deathknight, his voice hitching. He turned and reached tentatively towards Pyrrhus. The black-armored creature flinched at every clash from the fighting nearby.

“Very well, I - what?” Pyrrhus’ anima snuffed out like a candle and his hold on his swords loosened.

“I desire change... repentance... hope. I never wanted... to be ... this ... macabre villain.” The Deathknight slumped, his limbs losing animation as he bent his head to Pyrrhus’s blades.

Pyrrhus stared at the Deathknight blankly. “...You are serious?”

“Gods - yes. That or ...please... kill m--”

Pyrrhus never felt the impact on the back of his skull, just under the edge of his helmet. A wave of sparks crossed his vision as the ground rushed up at him and then all went softly dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pyrrhus offers repentance to every big bad the Circle has ever fought. No one's ever taken him up on it till now. In the first skirmish they fought on the mountain, in the Storium game Adamant Codex, he remarks, "One day someone will take me up on the offer and I will die with the shock of it." Foreshadowing much?


	5. Swallowing the Sun

The border of the shadowland raced down the mountainside, dragging blackness and despair in its wake. Rael held her breath as it approached with its usual inexorable progress, watching it flow from her perch at the top of the Manse’s tower. The windows flickered with golden essence at their borders, safeguarding the entrances of the First Age structure from the seeping corruption bearing down on it. 

The wave crashed over the Manse and New Meru, winding through the streets and avenues and continuing on its way down to the plains beyond the holy mountain. Rael let out her breath and returned to monitoring the essence flows of the automated defense turrets. The shadowland waves always dropped their available power, and it was a careful balancing act to make sure no undead forces took advantage of it.  Every so often she would stand and stretch, moving to the center of the room where the skylight let in unfiltered Sunlight - the only place the crushing despair brought by the shadowland abated. 

Minutes crept by. Wounded trickled into the makeshift hospital below; she could see them from the front windows. After the depredations of the last few months, beginning with the blood-rain and continuing with the constant attacks, the Manse and a very few other buildings were the only ones left that were capable of any shelter. 

“It’s been so long,” she murmured. “No other wave has lasted this long...” 

“Rael?” Tepet Siaj poked his head up from the stairwell, his electrum-pale hair crackling with the fading remnants of flared anima lightning. Even from where she sat, across the room, she could smell the scent of ozone and the scorched leather of his dark blue armored coat. “The battle is over, for now. Has Master Lightbringer not returned?” 

“No, and I’m beginning to worry.”

“Will you come down?” He came up the last few stairs, extending a gloved hand to her. Wisps of mist curled around the hem of his coat. 

“Not yet... I’ll wait until he returns. Was it a bad fight, this time?”   

Siaj shrugged and sat down on the edge of the stairwell, his tall lanky frame all angles dangling over the stairs. “It wasn’t the bloodiest, but... We lost a few, this time. No one I knew yet, but from the old guard. The Master’s original group of disciples.” He hunched his shoulders, shaking off the shadowland-induced despair with effort. “More serious wounds. It’s strange - they lost all direction halfway through the fight, no strategy - but more vicious for all that.”

Rael came over and sat down beside him, leaning into his warm side. The last of the anima discharged into her fingertips with a tiny static shock as she slid her fingers into his. “We’ll survive this. We will. Tepet Velin couldn’t keep us apart, and neither will any Deathlord. Lady Akaris will be back soon and then -”

He stood suddenly with a smile. “Of course. You’re right. I’ll bring you a meal, shall I? No telling how long you’ll be on watch. The other Keepers are all on the wounded list, tonight.”  

\--

The hours dragged on, into the late afternoon as the pale filtered sun began to sink into the western oceans. Angry ghosts began to drift through the ruins, and Rael shuddered, remembering horror stories her grandmother used to tell her of the Anathema city on the mountain. The Solars had cleansed the areas they lived in well, but - the city was huge, and most of it still lay unclaimed. Mistress had only stirred up the restless spirits further.

Something warned Rael and she looked up in time to catch the flash of a hemorrhaging dragonline. Pure earth essence flashed around the peak and the Shadowland snapped, losing its anchor to Creation’s fabric. It began sliding down the slope of the mountain, like oil on waxed canvas. Pure Creation followed it down, restoring the world. A sudden wind slammed into the side of the tower, momentarily shaking it down to its foundations. 

“They did it!” She nearly hopped up and down in glee as plain golden light spilled back in through the windows. The band of darkness had passed. 

The skylight irised open moments later.

With a thump and an indignant squawk, a silver falcon dropped through and hit the worktable. It tumbled onto the bench and then to the floor, leaving bloodstains and broken feathers behind. The falcon melted into the by-now familiar Raksi, sprawled on the hard floor. 

“Lady...?” Rael edged cautiously towards the elder Lunar. 

“Ugh. Just... a moment.” Raksi was in the worst shape she’d ever seen a body in; her flesh all down one side had been shredded as though she’d been through a threshing machine, and dripping green slime covered most of the rest. The flesh beneath looked pitted and melted, angry red streaks of blood poisoning spidered out delicately from open wounds. 

Tiny constructs, like clockwork millipedes, trundled out from a slot in the wall and scurried over to the prone Exalt. Their tiny probosces sipped at the slimy ichor, drawing it away from Raksi and the Manse, and their soft-footed legs polished away the pits it had begun to eat in the floor. Once they’d gone, Raksi sat up. Her wounds were beginning to close with sparkles of silver essence, leaving behind massive bruising in impressive shades of blue and purple, tinged with green near the edges. 

“Where’s that Zenith?” the Lunar growled finally, hiking herself up. Her clothes were in tatters to the point they did little to protect any modesty Raksi might have possessed, and her features still held a trace of shape-shifted ferality. 

“Master Pyrrhus?” Rael brought over the water carafe and offered it to Raksi. The Lunar snatched it from her and, disdaining the civility of a cup, downed it straight. “I haven’t seen him since the alarm was called. I thought he was with you?”

“No,” Raksi coughed. “No. He’s been missing since mid-morning, before the wave. Damn. They must have -”

“Must have what, Lady?”

“Mistress or her minions must have succeeded in capturing or killing him.” Raksi snarled and then heaved a deep, weary sigh. “Settle in, girl. You’ll be staying here for a while yet. This war just got a lot harder to survive.” 


	6. Scourge of Broken Innocents

“Aah, Master _Lightbringer_ ,” purred a voice somewhere beyond him, infusing his Immaculate sobriquet with a wealth of implication. “Long have I wanted to host you, here in my humble abode... And here you are...”

He didn’t reply. Unconsciousness still clawed at the edges of his skull, a sharp throbbing ache in time with his heart.  There was flat, cold metal beneath his bare back, with what felt like shallowly etched designs. The solar essence suffusing his body shied violently away from contact with whatever it was he lay on, leaving him the disconcerting sensation of thousands of mummified fingers drawing over his skin. The new tattoos, in particular, burned as if they would melt through the cool flat surface.

He could not see; everything was darkness before him. Almost without thinking about it, light flooded forth from him, the mark of the Zenith blazing from his head. He could just make out a ceiling far above, widely-spaced columns supporting its vaulted length. Pieces of it had fallen in, strange ashy stars shining in a night sky the color of burnt wood. He was not on Meru, any longer. Perhaps not even in Creation.

“Well! Your conversation leaves something to be desired, perhaps,” murmured the voice again. There was a clink of glassware and liquid pouring sounds, burbling into a cup. 

“My apologies,” Pyrrhus’ voice was choked with dust and dryness; he licked his lips and tried again, turning his head towards the voice. The light swing with him, illuminating what he’d hoped not to see. “I fear I am not my best after a blow to the head.” 

Mistress reclined at her ease on a scarlet velvet chaise, resplendent in a revealingly cut gown of gold and black silk, slit high with her ivory skin on display. Candles blazed about her throne, set into their own melted wax on the  carved dark wooden back. Her hair - black, today - fell curling about her shoulders, and a necklace of oversized black opals ringed her throat. She held a blue-tinted crystal goblet negligently in one hand, iron-red liquid dripping thickly down its stem. “We cannot all be perfect,” she sighed.

Everything beyond her was in black shadow. What little he could see to the side was also in shadow, with the occasional weakly flickering torch illuminating columns of squared black stone blocks the size of his torso. The smell of water and mustiness made his nose itch, and his gaze dropped back to Mistress and her cup, suddenly parched. 

When his wits had coagulated sufficiently to let him think, he pulled on his restraints and thought through the charms available to him. Nothing he knew allowed him an escape. Perhaps an opportunity would present itself, or he’d think of something else. But for now, he was helpless. And Mistress definitely knew it. Her lips curled into an unpleasant smile as she watched his conclusion reach his face.

She rose and strolled across the short distance separating them, her hips rolling with each carefully placed step until she loomed over him. She took a slow sip from her goblet; a drop slipped down the side of the glass and struck Pyrrhus’ flank. His mind lurched into full sprint as the last of the concussion faded supernaturally fast. Instinctively he flinched away from Mistress’ touch as she swiped a finger along his hip, licking the spilled drop from her fingers. 

“Am I interrupting an Occasion?” he inquired instead, reverting to the exaggerated drawing-room formality of his Dynastic childhood. With great effort he relaxed; his arms were chained closely to the slab he lay on and he could feel his shoulders straining, nearly disjointing. His legs, while not so stretched, were also chained tightly down. 

“Oh, not at all, child. You *are* the Occasion.” Mistress beckoned to someone beyond his gaze. “We’re all gathered here as a family to celebrate your Last Breath!”

“I pray you do not take offense when I confess I do not share your optimism in this instance.” 

Mistress laughed throatily and slapped lightly at his chest, an “Oh, you!” gesture, but her nails left deep, deliberate slices through his skin. “Don’t be so quick, darling. You haven’t even met your dance partners.”

The click of sharp-heeled shoes on stone echoed from just beyond the pool of light on his far side, and Pyrrhus scraped his head on the stone with the speed of his movement. Alasuin, the black-haired Deathknight he’d killed before, stepped up to his bier with a nasty smile. Mistress must have found her a new look-alike body to reincarnate into. Like her Liege, she wore a gown of black silk but far more practically cut, and her black hair was caught up in a crown of braids. A leash dangled negligently from one hand, leading off into the darkness, and the smell of rotting flowers wafted from her.

Beside her, the Deathknight that Pyrrhus had encountered earlier slouched, still in his bloodstained armor. The one concession he’d made to Mistress’ whims was the removal of his helmet. A slender filet of black and violet crystalline metal held back his ash blonde hair from clear wolf-yellow eyes.

“You already know Servant of the Bloodied Crown, Alasuin-”

“You didn’t laugh at my jest, dog,” Alasuin pouted. The expression did not improve her juvenile features. “It took me ages to come up with the perfect line to accompany that blow.”

“And this is Ashen Memory of Sown Iniquities.” Mistress flicked her fingers dismissively as the other knight grunted acknowledgement.

Her mien darkened suddenly, her hair losing its jubilant curls and flattening to her scalp. The glass she’d been holding fell from fingers filled with a different purpose, shattering on Pyrrhus’ resting place. Crystal shrapnel crashed into his side, creating new rivulets of blood to join those already smearing his flesh, bright new stinging pinpoints. Her voice roughened and dropped; a low snarl. “Now we will have a little fun...”

Alasuin clapped her hands in glee and yanked on the leash. A line of eerily silent bodies stumbled out of the dark, each one roped to the next by the neck. Men, women and children were all represented. At a gesture from Mistress, his bier rose and tilted just enough for him to see the animated corpses clearly, sharply lit from the light of his Caste mark. The breath left his lungs in a rush and something thickened in his throat - he could not force words past it. The light flickered. 

“Yes, you know these poor shattered husks,” Alasuin murmured in his ear, shoving the first past Pyrrhus’ face and into Mistress’s waiting arms. “Each a mortal you could not keep from my Mother, each one crying for your protection before being struck down. Their ghosts scream in agony beneath you, can you not hear them?”

Pyrrhus tried to turn his head away. The flesh crawling sensation beneath his back escalated, he almost felt the nails of dessicated hands raking his skin. What had been a faint unnoticed squeal against the background of all his other minor pains screamed into full volume; a chorus of betrayed voices blaming him for their agony. He couldn’t even begin to speak to them; only half a choked cry came to his lips. Alasuin shoved Ash forward and he grudgingly forced Pyrrhus’ eyes back to the line of bodies, a steel grip turning Pyr’s chin. 

Mistress said nothing, simply holding the first body gently. With casual brutality she shattered its limbs, drawing jagged shards of bone from the wreckage and laying them aside. Finally she whispered, “This one never stopped believing in your ability to save her. Save her - from me! And you betrayed her.” She tossed the body in front of him, only partly seen in the flickering pool of candlelight. 

She did not stop until the entire line was nothing but mangled shadowed forms in a heap just past his chained feet. Snarls and hissing broke out in the darkness, light glinting off many pairs of eyes, and every once in awhile a body would vanish, dragged off across the basalt floor. Each one she narrated their fall, how he had failed to keep them from her, until he could not stop the denials in his throat and the tears that spilled down his face. Each face a memory of a conflict between his Circle and Mistress, of collateral damage caught up in the fight that he could not rescue.

Ashen Memory’s grip released abruptly and the Deathknight stepped away out of Pyrrhus’ sight, only the sound of metal against metal revealing his place behind Pyr’s bier. Alasuin pressed herself against Pyrrhus, stroking the shaved side of his head. 

“Ssh, don’t worry, *Pyr*,” she crooned in mocking sympathy, pronouncing the short form of his name as in funeral pyre. “They’re in the best place they could possibly be now, helping birth a new Herald of the Void. Haven’t you realized what this is?” Her fingertips, clad in articulated silver finger armor, tapped the metal he lay on. New shrieks of agony from the ghosts trapped within pierced his skull with each click. 

A jagged shard of bone flashed down; Pyrrhus instinctively twisted away, straining his shoulders with a gasp of pain. The shard pierced Alasuin’s hand, skidding off Pyr’s tattoo beneath with a scatter of gold sparks and embedded in the meat of his ribs. The Deathknight let out an offended feline squall and jerked back her hand, the shard with it ripping from his side. 

Mistress glowered behind her. “Cease your words. Get it vertical.” She glanced at Ashen Memory, sidling back into view. “You. Turn him.” She spared a moment to stare at his tattoos, drawing a finger along one of the whorls. The orichalcum smoked and began to glow white hot; Mistress barely seemed to take notice of the burn. She harrumphed and turned back to her throne.

Alasuin yanked the shard out of her palm and threw it behind her, stalking off huffily. Pyrrhus dropped his head back and closed his eyes, breathing deeply against the fresh wound. * _ This... is a Monstrance?... Rose spoke little of Monstrances, but enough to make us fear... O, Sol Invictus, grant me strength against this...* _ His caste mark flickered again.

The Monstrance suddenly shifted with a squeal of tortured metal and slammed upright. The chains shifted over the top and took most of the strain from his shoulders; he panted with relief as the awkward pressure eased. 

Ashen Memory reached over Pyrrhus and grabbed his far bicep, hauling him over with ease so that Pyrrhus’ face pressed against the etched soulsteel of the Monstrance. His caste mark’s light glittered off the sharply incised edges.  He barely understood the Deathknight’s near-inaudible whisper amid the thousand other sensations. “I dare not disobey.... Forgive me...”

Pyrrhus could only grunt in response, his voice stolen by the knowledge of his impending ruin. A Monstrance was designed for one thing, and one thing only: to break the will of anyone, mortal or Exalted, to force them to acknowledge the inevitability (and superiority) of the Abyss, and place them under the subjugation of the Neverborn. To create more monstrosities like Mistress and her Deathknights. Servants of the Void - whose only purpose was to sink all of Creation into Oblivion.

He could barely see Mistress, lacing her newly acquired bone into the tails of a long leather scourge with the care of a master craftsman. Alasuin hovered on the very edge of Mistress’ dais, and Ashen Memory sat down hard against the legs of the chaise, slumping like a string-cut puppet. Mistress looked up with a frown at the jolt. “Good. Now, leech him.”

Ashen Memory grimaced and got back up; Alasuin picked up what Pyr had assumed to be decorative carvings on the chaise and handed one to Ashen Memory. The things uncurled and wriggled in their hands - many-legged chitinous insects with jagged sections of armor; a necrotech pillbug writ large and malevolent. Alasuin stroked hers as it curled about her hand, shifting shape and color to camouflage against her jewelry, her gown - whatever it touched. 

“At least we got *some* good out of that awful night,” Alasuin crooned. “These poor babies were locked up in that sooo interesting laboratory.” With a wicked pinch, she grabbed the thing behind the head. It writhed and emitted a furious high-pitched whine, displaying a formidable set of fangs. The Deathknight slapped it on Pyrrhus’ bicep, just in front of his nose, and let go. 

The bug bit down, its many legs stabbing into his skin as it curled tightly around the muscle. Pyrrhus jerked away from it with a muffled yowl. Blood and coalesced essence began to drip from the insect’s head, welling up like juice from a ripe peach.  “Ignis Divine! What *is* that?”

“Don’t you like our staffid? They’ll drain every last mote from a body, and their venom inhibits essence channels.” 

Ashen Memory repeated the process on Pyrrhus’ other side, and the Zenith’s stomach roiled as his already depleted energy gushed from the wounds. * _ I will not vomit,* _ he repeated silently, turning and resting his forehead on the metal. His caste mark flickered, its light waning as the staffid drank in his essence. The soulsteel glittered darkly, and the pattern of inlaid orichalcum wire writhed before his eyes, nauseating him further. Pyrrhus closed his eyes and focused instead on a meditative mantra, silently repeating the Psalm of the Dragon Atoning.

* _ My sacrifice, O Sol Invictus, is a broken spirit;  a broken and contrite heart you, Ignis Divine, will not despise. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O Lord of Heaven, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. Create in me a pure heart, O Sun, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.  Do not cast me from your presence or take your Spark from me. Have mercy on me, Unconquered Sun, according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. * _

The souls in the steel began to wail louder yet, and Mistress rose with a hiss of silk. “Go, children. I wish to be alone with our future Knight.”

The click of footsteps testified to their quick obedience. 

For a moment it was still. Then Mistress yanked his head back, her hand wrapped in the thick braided queue that still hung down his bare back. “I think this will just get in the way, don’t you?”

“Don’t -” but the quick hiss of a blade and sudden release on his head and Pyrrhus knew that she had. He looked - the length of blonde-to-red dangled from her fist. His head was strangely light. Mistress, her face blank, tossed the coil of hair off to the side and vanished again into the shadows. 

It was hushed now, quiet except for the occasional drip of blood or hiss of the torches. The silence deepened and lengthened until Pyrrhus taunted himself with the thought that perhaps Mistress had departed as well. Perhaps this was the escape opportunity he’d looked for.

The first stroke of the bone shard lash hissed through the air and swiftly corrected his thinking. Pyrrhus groaned and set his head to endure. He must. His Circle would not leave him long in Mistress’ hands...

The light of Zenith flickered once more and went out.


	7. Dolor's Hammer

“I suppose that will have to do,” Mistress sighed, eons later. The shard whip clattered to the stone floor and her soft footsteps came up beside him.

If Pyrrhus had not been a Solar Exalted, he would have passed out long ago. At this moment, he almost wished he were not. The chains were the only things supporting him now, and the edges of the manacles had left raw bloody rings on his wrists. 

“After all,” she continued, casually intimate, her hair incongruously soft against his abused shoulders as she stroked the still-intact skin of his arms. “You’ll be a much better servant of mine if you are whole... relatively.” 

“Go to Malfeas.” The epithet was meant in earnest, but Pyr’s voice came out flat and tired. His nerves were raw and screaming - worse than the tattoos by an order of magnitude, since the tattoos had  _ *wanted _ * to be part of him - this was literal sheer torture. 

“Mm. Already have.” Mistress ambled over to her dais and picked up a pottery carafe. Pyrrhus tracked her warily, until she stepped out of view behind him. She began murmuring something, and Pyr felt the whisper of essence stir against his back, his tattoos thrumming in response like a cat’s whiskers in wind. It was  _ *wrong _ * essence, death essence, like the magics that writhed in the Monstrance beneath his cheek. 

Pottery clinked against the stone floor, and then Mistress’ hands were on his back, dripping liquid across the stripes. 

It burned like hellfire. Her hands anointed the abused flesh, working the liquid into them, catching on threads of muscle and edges of bone. Or so his imagination painted for him - what else could make those hitching sensations that made his back and arms twitch involuntarily. 

“Ah, now, see. Soo much better,” Mistress crooned. Death essence washed over his back in a cascade with her strokes...

And the pain... vanished. 

Pyrrhus gasped in relief, sudden wetness springing to his eyes. Mistress’ fingers moved over smooth skin and whole responsive muscles. Even the absence of pain was now as a pleasure akin to the first meal after days of fasting. 

“Only the power of death - of oblivion and the Neverborn - brings an end to suffering,” Mistress said, her touch light on his flanks. He felt her lips kissing up the small of his back and squirmed away, disgusted. She just laughed and pinned him in place with one supernaturally strong hand, licking up the line of his spine. “Death always wins.”

“No,” he finally replied when he had regained sufficient composure to control his voice. 

“Ah, Master Lightbringer. Have the eloquent proofs I’ve heard so much about deserted you?”

“I see no use in trying to sway you. It’s clear your reasoning left with your life, long ago.” 

Mistress rolled her eyes. “Poor child. Even your insults have suffered.” 

She vanished from his field of view and again it was quiet and still. Pyrrhus was left with only his own thoughts. The essence of the void seeped into his channels - he could feel the dark fingers of it - but with the staffid on his arms, all he could do was watch.

The silence dragged longer and longer. The few moments to breathe were welcome, and as he looked up he noticed even the raw rings around his wrists were gone; healed. 

There was still no noise, no movement, no hint that Mistress was still in the room. Pyrrhus knew better than to assume she was actually gone. But... he must at least... attempt to escape. He flexed, testing the strength of the chains. The metal clinked as the links stiffened, but held firm. He growled in frustration and yanked - nothing.

Why had she healed him? She couldn’t possibly  _ *mean* _ for him to escape... 

_ *No... She just wants to build up your hopes before she crushes them... This is a battle of the mind, first and foremost.*  _ He dangled for a long while, occasionally pulling upward to relieve some of the strain, thinking. He could feel the death-essence pulling at him, dragging his thoughts down the path that only ended one way, and fought it. 

There wasn’t enough slack in his chains to bring his feet beneath him, but he wrapped his fingers around the chains attached to his wrist and pulled himself a few inches upwards, enough to look around the room. Nothing; just the empty chaise lounge, bare stone walls, and candles. 

Using just his left, he pulled upward to the limit of the lower chains, reaching with the other hand to try and dislodge the staffid.  

The bone lash flicked out of the darkness. Bright stripes of fresh pain erupted across his shoulder and face, across the back of his hand. Mistress appeared once more in the hazy candlelight, the slightest hint of a smile on her lips. “Naughty. You’re not leaving yet.”

Her arm moved, and the lash again snapped out and bit into the clean flesh of his back.  He arched and gasped, consciousness dissolving into the white glare of torment again.

-

Pyrrhus lost count somewhere around seven. It was probably more. Definitely. At least seven times Mistress lay open the muscles and skin of his back with her bone lash, and at least seven times she whispered to him, healed him with her touch and the pour of death-essence.

Repeated the cycle of pain and pleasure - of the absence of pain - until he no longer flinched away from her presence, her touch. He might even have begged for it; he couldn’t remember any more. He  just hung, limp, every sensation magnified into an entire realm of its own. 

She’d left him alone between each session of extremes; sometimes minutes, sometimes hours within his own increasingly desperate, bleak thoughts. She once brought water when she healed, but his entire being felt dry and sandpapery. He longed for moisture.

Blood crusted his legs and hips, striped his arms, clotted at the corner of his lips. _ *This * _ must _ * be the last... _ * he pleaded - to the Unconquered Sun or the Neverborn, even he wasn’t sure anymore.  _  *I can’t... I have nothing left. _ * 

Mistress was stroking his arms, down the length of muscled forearm and across his shoulders. Pyrrhus sagged further into her touch, breath coming faster with anticipation of blessed release, but she drew away.

“Perfect,” Mistress said. She tapped one of the staffid lightly on the head. It shuddered and dropped off into her hands, curling into a contented ball. The damned thing might even have been purring.

She walked behind him, trailing her fingers along his orichalcum brand. As the rest of his back was a sheet of tormented flesh, those tattoos were the only place he still had any feeling other than raw agony. He could feel fresh blood dripping down his legs, and he was very glad he could not see his own flesh. 

She wasn’t going to heal him this time. It must be over --

Pyrrhus dredged up the last of his will, lifted his chin and spat out a gob of red from where he’d bitten his lip. It slid down the metal face of the Monstrance, catching in the grooves. Getting the words past the coppery, chalky taste of his own tongue was harder. Only a strained whisper left his lips - all that was left of his voice after ages of screams. “I * _ will* _ die before I let you have me.”

“My, what conviction. That is, of course, your choice. But who will protect poor Angeline and little Aelius if you do?” Her voice was perfectly pleasant now as she tickled the other staffid into dropping off. “But you’ll see soon enough. Time for the Neverborn to have you, dear.... oh, but first... Ash!”

While her call echoed down the stone corridors, the Monstrance slammed down flat with a boom that shook the building. Pyrrhus cracked his head against it, tasting fresh blood in his mouth and growing lump on his forehead. The relief of the loss of gravity on his wrists overshadowed almost everything else. The disturbing sensation of gobbets of flesh slapping squishily against his back and the now-familiar inability to flex any of the muscles there (and searing pain when he tried) nearly brought up his gorge again. * _ Thank you, Lord of Heaven, that my love is not here to witness this.*  _ He lay quietly, just breathing, trying not to move. Dust and small pebbles rained down on him.

“Yes, Mistress.” Ashen Memory had arrived amid the crash of the Monstrance. 

“You have your warhammer with you.”

“Yes, Mistress. Always, Mistress.”

“Good. Be a dear and crush his limbs.” 

“You’ve already flayed me to the bone, Mistress... how will more pain further your designs?” Ashen Memory was approaching, his helmet back firmly on his head. The Deathknight’s face was hidden behind behind the steel plate, but his gauntleted hand briefly on Pyrrhus’ wrist briefly apologetic Pyr imagined.

“Just a precaution,” Mistress sang cheerfully as Ashen Memory pulled his warhammer free and positioned it carefully. He moved the manacles down Pyr’s arms with the slackened chain so they would not interfere. Pyrrhus inhaled deeply, ignoring the catch in his throat.  Mistress looked down fondly at him. “I wouldn’t want any oopsies because I’d overlooked something, and I know you’re a fine master of the martial arts.”

At least Ashen Memory was quick about it. With several precise blows, Pyrrhus felt the bones of wrists, forearms, and lower leg just above the ankle fragment and give way beneath the head of the hammer. They didn’t hurt - yet - but he knew they would in short order, and the swelling would begin. He was effectively crippled. A stick fracture he could have worked around, but not something like this. 

Before the echoes of the strikes had even faded from the room, the chains snapped open and dropped. The top of the Monstrance folded open and Pyrrhus fell, limp, into the Abyss.


	8. Whispers

_ *New meat...* _

_ *So young, so sure....* _

_ *It has tasted of death once already...* _

The whispers started immediately, sharp daggers of alien consciousnesses stabbing him with their thoughts. He might’ve floated in nothingness as far as he knew, so completely did the Neverborn take over his senses. All that was left was the voices, and the pain. Each stripe of the lash, each casual slice, each tiny bone fragment was exaggerated into worlds of throbbing, piercing, flashing torment. 

_ *This body will die, too.* _

_ *Death will always come. Only then will the pain end.* _

“Death may always come, but life will always follow,” Pyrrhus whispered, curling in on himself until his knees hit the side of the Monstrance. His back shrieked at him and he felt the rips widen, pressed against the smooth far side of the tomb. 

The whispering carried on, an endless rasp across his mind. It was impossible to think through them. Sometimes they were in a language he understood, often they were unintelligible. The meanings were always clear: submit to Oblivion. Militant nihilists, with the weight of millenia being brought to bear against his fragile mortal mind. “ _ O Righteous Lion, defend me!” _

Finally he forced his stiffening fingers to his chest, knuckles pressed hard against the orichalcum embedded in his skin. They glowed with a soft golden light, anchoring him briefly in the reality of the Monstrance interior. He could feel the essence building up behind them - the network of his few Manses across Meru and Creation trying to channel their power to him. 

_ *That is a new thing.... We could learn...* _

The multitude of minds sharpened and focused, diving into his mind with no regard for its integrity. They pummeled him with images designed to break his psyche like an egg, to scatter the contents for their inspection. By reflex he squeezed his eyes shut -- but they were within his mind and nothing would keep them out. Things... he couldn’t even comprehend, like tales from the Deep Wyld... kaleidoscoped through him, horrors of mutated children, beasts of dead flesh and living, loved ones stretched to unnerving proportions. 

Somewhere he lost track of time; of his own body’s rhythm of the days. Time meant nothing beneath the weight of the Neverborn’s assault. Finally, words spilled out of his mouth that he’d forgotten even existed. It would have been a scream if he’d had the air left in his lungs for it, as it was only broken sobs emerged. 

“Stop! Stop, please -- No more. No more!”

“Lightbringer!” A muffled hoarse voice - a whisper, but a real one! - cut through the clamor of his mind. Pyrrhus struggled to remember anything but the call of the Void and the fathomless macabre depths of Neverborn insanities. There was  a name. The Deathknight was called... Ember... Coal... Ash! Ashen Memory. The voice continued. “Lightbringer. Are you there? Do not give in, please -”

“I... I am... here,” he called with a voice gone to gravel, dredging the words from nearly forgotten faculties. The Whispers continued to argue and scream at each other in the back of his head, but between the presence of another human being and his knuckles pressed firmly against his tattoos, it became briefly bearable.

“Mistress has left. I am... to watch and report. Please... I cannot open it... I wish...”

“Wish...?”

“I... may not... speak of it.” There was a sudden impact above him, as if an armored fist slammed down, and the Monstrance rang like a bell. “I cannot... not without help... You... offered.” 

* _ You Will Not Listen To It!*  _ Pyrrhus’ hoarse cry was echoed outside the chamber by Ashen Memory’s broken voice; the Neverborn’s wrath overflowed and locked them both into the agonies only an undead Primordial creature could unleash.

_ *No. I claim them. These two are now MINE.* _

The fury of the Neverborn was abruptly cut-off though the howling continued, impotent, in the distance, as if a heavy door had been slammed between them. Free of the gibbering voices, Pyr bit down on his own and his howl faded into rough breaths.

The Monstrance, Pyr discovered on opening his eyes, was not entirely solid. Ribs of indigo crystal banded in soulsteel were spaced evenly along the sides of the casket. Through their fractured, rutilated interiors he could see Ashen Memory flat on the stone floor beyond, black blood seeping from the slits in his helmet’s faceplate. 

“Deathknight...” Pyrrhus murmured, tapping the wall gingerly. Ashen Memory did not stir.

_*You... are most like me. There are things...*_ The new Whisper pivoted into unintelligible rambling for long moments. _*No! Yes, you must know. Concepts.... before they are bygone.. I am bygone... Lost! Lost forever, the Void calls, Oblivion... squandered. No! Not yet. Come, learn, now... Justice Mercy Humble... abasement...*_

Pyrrhus felt his mind caught up in the wake of this particular Neverborn’s disjointed speech. The cool of the metal against his cheek stayed faintly with him, but he was no longer in the Monstrance - or so it appeared. Clothed once more, in the open chested tunics and robes of the Order, he ghosted through a labyrinthine cathedral. At first, it seemed fairly normal - smooth carved stone columns, arcing vaulted ceilings, stained glass and glimmering lights. 

The closer he examined though, the more disturbing the architecture became. Smooth columns resolved into chipped and fleshy bone, with what looked like toothmarks cracking its surface. Stained glass became dripping viscous fluids stretched over blackened tendons. Even the floor was transfigured into mosaics of bloody betrayals and back-stabbings. When he let his focus relax, the cathedral smoothed over, becoming a place of beauty and peace once more. Things swam in and out of this focus as he floated down endless hallways, catching glimpses of moving beings in shadowy distance. 

“Hello?” he called, his voice as he remembered it echoing deeply.

_ *Oh. There you are.*  _  The halls shuddered; an immense earthen-toned tortoise with the head of a dragon and a camel’s splayed feet shouldered between the columns. The mosaics beneath its toes crumbled and the faces in the torches sighed as it passed. * _ You were a dream. A cruel joke of my brothers. A hope....* _

The tortoise grunted at him and turned down a smaller hallway. It should not have fit, but did, the cathedral shifting perspective before and after its path. 

“I am... real. As real as anything in this place, at least.” He could still feel the dim fire of his back. “I don’t believe I’ve yet died.”

_ *Death is the greatest hoax of all. Tantalus in the pool, our Void is unattainable.* _ The tortoise exhaled a whirlwind of blasting sand, scouring the columns on either side of its head clean of clinging decay. 

“What are you called?” Pyrrhus struggled to catch up as it stomped down the path. This Neverborn was different. Apathetic, it did not care if there was Oblivion or not, and he did not feel the bitter rage that had consumed the others flaying his thoughts. There was rage there, true, if the mosaics and monuments within this Labyrinth were any indication, but it all seemed directed at its fellow dead.

* _ Names have been stolen. Scraped. Clean again. Once, I was...* _ It stopped, shaking its head as if irritated by flies. The words came slow, dragged from a deep pit of oozing thought.  _ *I don’t remember. Oblige... something... Nobility?* _

“Oblige. Why did you claim me? Bring me here?” Pyrrhus reached it, put out a hand to its glazed terracotta shell. Pyrrhus’ vision changed, blurred then clear like emerging from the ocean, and it wasn’t a tortoise-dragon at all anymore. A dark-skinned man, straight-backed with age-whitened dreadlocks and an ebony staff, clad in the robes of a begging-monk, stared at him through clouded eyes.

_ *Did I?*  _ The old man’s gaze sharpened and snagged on Pyrrhus’ chest. The words of his tattoo shone sapphire-sharp and suddenly the hall was filled to overflowing with sunlight.  _ *YOU. YES. MY PRINCIPLE, PART OF YOU. I see-- the denouement. It is almost.... * _

The elder stabbed Pyrrhus’ chest sharply with the end of the staff. His lungs emptied in a rush with the impact and Pyrrhus fell, into the reaching stony hands of the mosaic. 

The world was endless storm. Bits of colored stone and tile whipped through the steel air, and shattered lightning hung amid twisting funnels. They struck against his naked flesh like hailstones, leaving bruises and welts. He barely felt them beneath the threads of fire already crisscrossing his back. Chains wrapped him tightly, and instinctively he fought against them. 

_ *PRINCIPLE _ !* Oblige thundered from somewhere beyond. Pyr’s tattoos flashed, the words that formed them ricocheting through his mind in Raksi’s skeptical voice. 

“Humility...” Pyrrhus gasped, the last of his breath sighing out over the links. He stopped writhing and went still. The chains let go, hovering over his shoulders in a halo of transparent amber links. His robes appeared, smooth and comforting against his raw flesh. He ran his fingers along them, wondering.

_ *Chain of being,*  _ Oblige sounded wistful.  _ *Brothers... made of it a lash. Killed me. ME! _ *

The first link snapped at the weld. The loop held it to the next for a few moments, but as the ring turned the link slipped off, snapping the next link, and the next, until the entire chain was nothing but metal shrapnel. The ring spun faster, and the former chain shredded his clothing. 

_ *The first link is gone. So too the next three. Soon it will be useless. _ * Oblige, again in vision a dragon-tortoise, picked him up in thick claws. The rheumy reptilian eyes drilled him, and his mind was slammed by a lump of tangled knowledge.  _ *You must understand. MUST. Re-make the chain. Fuse it! Or nothing will be left. Do not satisfy those...  _ * He trailed off into furious mutterings, in some ancient language Pyrrhus did not recognize.

“Please...” Pyrrhus groaned. The claws had begun to crush him. 

Oblige cut off mid-obscenity and looked down, as if surprised to see Pyrrhus still there. He harrumphed deep in his chest and flung the Solar out into the kaleidoscopic storm. Pyrrhus’ vision shifted and swayed. 

Once more the floor of the Monstrance resolved beneath his cheek. Part of him was still within Oblige’s cathedral-tomb, and the other Neverborn remained locked out. Their malevolent whispers continued in the back of his head, but softly; like a light spring rain in the background. He could not understand them, and their intentions were lost beneath the sound. It had almost grown comforting.

It would take him months, if not years, to understand everything in the memory-mass Oblige had dropped on him, but he could see the overall shape of it. All his and his predecessor’s theorizing on the existence of a fifth virtue was born true. Oblige had once embodied that virtue, among other related ideas that Pyrrhus could not grasp. When a Primordial died, so too did those concepts it personified. When Raksi had changed the paths of his essence with the power of the Old Realm script, they had unknowingly drawn on one of those lost concepts. 

But since the Neverborn were not ... quite... dead... then neither were those concepts  _ *entirely* _ lost. 

Oblige - long ago, before the Primordial War - had insisted that his brothers and sisters could not just wipe out the sentient species they had created, to start over clean. They had obligations to benefit and protect their Creations, to be able to consider the others as equals to themselves. 

The Holy Tyrant - King and Ruler of the Primordials - was repulsed by this idea. And seeing that it was the nature of his brother to insist on such things, and indeed it had become a law of Creation - like essence, like gravity, like the warmth of his light - the Primordial King struck down his brother. It was the King’s nature to rule, and rule absolutely, not serve those he knew were inferior to himself - he had * _ made _ * them after all. 

The abrupt removal of humility and its orbiting realities shook the fabric of this thing called Creation. The gods conspired amongst each other and the Exalted were born, and the cascade of Usurpations began. 

Pyrrhus understood. The Holy Tyrant had thought the yoke of service a prison. But it was no more a prison than any other ideal. Exalted were made with the potential to change everything. Pyrrhus could restore the welds in the chain that kept Creation revolving simply by reintroducing the Lost Virtue. 

There was a groan and Ashen Memory pushed himself off the floor; dimly seen through the crystal ribs of the Monstrance. He yanked his helmet from his head; a burned-black Dawn caste mark bled freely on his forehead. The Deathknight pressed up against the Monstrance; a wide, hopeful smile stretching his bloodstained lips.

“Lightbringer,” called Ashen Memory. His voice was stronger, its thready gravel smoothed over with new purpose. “I... I know how to open the Monstrance. We can leave.”


	9. Flaws in the Weld

Pyrrhus lay heavily across Ashen Memory’s back, strapped into place with a wide padded leather belt. He could not grip, could not walk, could do nothing to support himself, and his limbs throbbed with every step. Once free from the Monstrance, essence emanating from his tattoos had begun to seep with distressing slowness into his system, suffusing his body with the warmth of a hot drink on a cold night. It would be hours, maybe days yet before enough had accumulated to do anything; he was wholly dependent on the Deathknight.

“Where... are we, precisely?” Pyrrhus murmured, staring over Ashen Memory’s shoulder at the bleak and anemic landscape outside the dungeon. He shifted slightly to better distribute his weight and balance but the belt rubbed his raw back and he bit down on the pain. It could not be helped - they must leave. They’d wrapped him in a wide swath of discarded velvet curtain to cushion the wounds but it didn’t help much. 

“I’m not certain. But I have a general idea. Mistress keeps her Monstrances scattered and secret. We’ll have to find a Shadowland to get you back home.” Ashen Memory glanced up at the gray sky - there was no Sun in it, just ambient, directionless light, watered down and weak. “We can’t be too far from Stygia. There wasn’t enough time when we brought you.”

“How long... have I been down here?” 

“A few weeks. Maybe a little longer.” Chagrin colored the Deathknight’s voice. “I lost track somewhere.”

Pyrrhus’ breath caught. He said nothing in reply, could think of nothing. The Underworld was already silent, and without their conversation, the hush turned suspicious and almost malevolent. The underworld did not welcome the living. 

Ashen Memory’s steps found an overgrown road, and he turned along it. Though he tried to remain alert, Pyrrhus’ head grew heavy with pain-filled fatigue. Lulled by the unchanging landscape and the steady rhythm of Ashen Memory’s steps, Pyrrhus fell into a waking sleep, losing all sense of time. 

It may have been days later, or merely minutes, when Ashen Memory stopped. “Lightbringer,” he  hissed. “Look...”

“Stop calling me that,” Pyr muttered, lifting his head.

The road ahead of them went through what had once been a village. The buildings were made of rough hewn gray stone and thatched with bleached, dusty straw. Some of the larger ones had fallen, leaving broken blocks strewn across the black cobbled road. Dust hung suspended in the air, leaving soft-edged columns of shadow across the ruined town.

Pyrrhus forced his eyes to focus. Between them and the town a company of skeletal chargers stamped and pawed, steam blowing from their muzzles. Their riders were motionless, waiting for a command from the woman at their head.

“Oh, Malfeas.”

Mistress, in dark armor, glared down at them. Her mount snapped at the air and dug at the ground, pulling against her tight hand on the reins. Something had raked her; long claw marks had ripped into her flesh all down her left side, leaving her armor shredded. The blood had coagulated into gobbets and thick threads, and the stench of an unclean death wafted to them. The wound didn’t seem to bother Mistress - it certainly didn’t damp her rage. 

“How * _ dare _ * you?!” she shrieked. She flung herself off her mount and stalked toward them. “How did you even -- No. I don’t care. You’ll  _ *pay* _ for it either way!”

Ashen Memory undid the buckles and quickly but gently lowered Pyrrhus, setting him down to one side of the road. He took up his war hammer from where it had hung on his belt, dropped the faceguard of his helmet and waited. It was clear to both of them there was no way to escape her. Pyrrhus held weakly to the velvet curtain, trying to judge if Ashen Memory had any real hope of defeating her. Given the company behind her, he doubted it.  _ *Oh, Sol Invictus - watch over Angeline. Protect and guide my son... This does not look well -- again...* _

Mistress lifted her hand sharply when she reached the pair, her eyes gone flat black with rage. Ashen Memory lifted his warhammer in a guard position, watching his Liege’s stance shift into attack.

And the air... rippled. 

The chargers noticed it first, tossing their heads and shifting, edging away from the road. Far behind them rose the Underworld’s capital, Stygia, a vast metropolis as sprawling as the Imperial Mount. In the center, Ashen Memory had told him, lay the Abyss, the opening to Oblivion. 

From that gaping maw rose the sharp, flat  _ *PING* _ of parting metal. It raced over the terrain, a physical force, toppling a few of the remaining buildings and hitting them with a hammer blow. Pyrrhus grunted with the impact, curling around his center, and Ashen Memory rocked on his feet.

The blackness drained from Mistress’ eyes, and her expression shifted instantly to - Pyrrhus could hardly imagine such a creature being so - terrified. She dropped her hand and seemed to forget their presence, turning back towards Stygia. Ashen Memory, too, had dropped his hammer and stared in the direction of the city. 

“No...” Mistress whispered. “It can’t... It’s not possible...”

The final death rattle of a Primordial long in the dying sighed up from the Abyss. A puff - cloud, more like - of bone dust rose from Stygia, rising over the lands of the Underworld with the same inexorable progress as Mistress’ shadowland waves, but far quicker. It shook the foundations of Stygia as it passed, and huge chunks of the city fell. Massive fissures spider-webbed out from the metropolis, rending the dead earth.

The dust rushed over them.

Hidden in the thick cloud, Mistress screamed. The chargers let out brassy shrieks, drowning out the sounds of their riders. Ashen Memory fell backward under its force, scrabbling at the hard road until he found Pyrrhus’ cloak. The Deathknight was keening behind his faceplate, and this close, Pyrrhus could see the thick black streams of blood leaking from it. 

“Ashen... Ash... we must go...” Pyrrhus could not make the fingers of his hand work; his arm only moved limply from the elbow down but he touched the Deathknight’s helmet. “The dust - it gives us an escape -”

“Blinded, blinded! I cannot see,” Ash moaned. “They are so angry - the Whispers! Ungh... the... backlash...”

“I will guide you,” Pyrrhus said. “But we must go now.”

Ash groaned but got himself to one knee, carefully reaching arms beneath the crippled Zenith.  Being slung over an armored back was not exactly easy even when both parties involved are sighted and conscious, but they managed and started on.

The dust began settling in patches, enough to navigate by. Fissures and canyons were still opening,  crumbling away beneath their feet.

Mistress’ shrieks abruptly changed tenor as the pair maneuvered gingerly to pass far around her. Pyrrhus looked back once, as the dust swirled and revealed Mistress, her face a sheet of black ichor, reaching towards them with clawed hands. Her shrieks turned vengeful, full of blind fury. “Get them! Don’t let them escape!”

A fresh rumble tore through the ground and Mistress scratched at her face, writhing in the torment the Neverborn were pouring down on her. Ash flinched and groaned, but kept going. 

Pyrrhus felt the beginnings of a hysterical laugh grab at his throat. It could have been a comic play - the bumbling escapees, the shambling, clumsy pursuants. Pyrrhus choked it down, nudged Ash to the right to dodge out of the reach of a moaning, blind war-ghost minion. His reflex was to slice the hand away, but with no blade, no essence, and no grip, his reflexes were useless. 

“To your left,” Pyrrhus said. His eyes were still perfectly functional, at least. “There is debris, and then a building we can go through.”

Slowly, Pyr guided them through the maze of ruins, around chasms that continued to form with the aftershocks. 

“What happened? What was that cloud, and the earthquake?” he asked quietly as they threaded their way across the central square. Ash was shuffling his booted feet, feeling for broken stonework and debris barring their path, though Pyrrhus was guiding him around the largest stuff with nudges and whispers. He could tell the Deathknight was still suffering waves of agony every time the ground shifted, and the keening of the Neverborn was audible even to him, but what caused it?

“I think - and I... don’t know... how this is possible --” Ash paused to slide around a chunk of broken pillar and gasp as another tremor rolled through. “I think -- a Neverborn fell into Oblivion. It’s... never happened...”

Another nephwrack, drawn by the sound of their quiet voices, crawled into the square, its head questing back and forth. Pyrrhus just watched as it flung itself forward - straight into a yawning fissure that bisected the plaza. 

“Our pursuit?” Ash asked, hearing the clatter and crash. His head turned in the direction blindly.

“I think we’ll be alright for a little...” Pyrrhus said, checking back over his shoulder. “Here, the road out of town...”


	10. Chasing the Sun

“Well, my Zenith, what a mess you are.” 

The voice came suddenly out of the misty gray as they stumbled along. Ash started, head swiveling around, seeking the source.

A pair of women stepped out from beneath an essence-fueled vision-confusing charm - he recognized the shimmers in the air as it dissolved. One, clad in the silver swirling marks of her moonsilver tattoos and nearly nothing else, had bright blue hair. It struck Pyr that it was brightest color he had seen in days other than his own blood - a rich lapis color, deeper than the sky. The second, in a white silk tunic and cropped leather pants, smiled a cat’s smile at Pyrrhus as her empty-moon silver caste mark flickered and went dark. Bioluminescent stripes and spots glowed faintly white across her cheeks and down her neck, disappearing beneath the fabric of her clothing. The charm faded. 

“They are Chosen of Luna,” Pyrrhus murmured. Ash did not relax, and one hand reached for the warhammer no longer hanging at his belt. 

“Oh, hello! You’re right on time!” chirped the blue-haired woman. “I’m Joyous Pursuit of the Crimson Star, but you can call me Joy! We’ve been tracking your stars for weeks but now here you are. You and I are bound by fate; together--”

Joy bounded up to Ash and pressed herself against him, using a kiss by way of a period to end her sentence. The deathknight stiffened in surprise, dropping Pyrrhus who yelped in pain. The other Lunar was there immediately to ease his fall, tsking at the state of his limbs. 

“...How did you... it is usually days before a backlash subsides.... How?” Ash straightened and focused on Joy, his eyes still blank. His expression was as dumbfounded as Pyrrhus imagined his must have been when the deathknight had surrendered to him in the first place. The blood had ceased flowing from his caste mark, and the way he looked around told Pyrrhus he was still blind, but the trembling pain inflicted by the Neverborn’s rage had washed from him.

“As I said, we are bound by fate, Madeus.” She made a vague gesture in the direction of the sky, but her eyes were focused intently on his face. “Of course I would come for you.”

Ash jolted as if he’d been punched in the gut. “What... what did you call me?”

“Your name, silly. Madeus.” She blinked guilelessly at him. “Of course I know it. We are  _ Bound. _ I could not have found you without it.” Ash’s expression was unreadable. Pyrrhus knew there was something significant to the speaking of Ash’s - what? mortal name? - but he had not the clarity of mind to draw it forth.

“And now, we must go,” said the other Lunar, kneeling by Pyrrhus. She drew him gently to lean his side against her, relieving some of the strain of his wounds. “There is a shadowland nearby, upon the Mount itself. We will take you back to Creation.”

“That must be the City of Night,” Pyrrhus managed between clenched teeth and panting breaths, still recovering from the unceremonious drop. “Who... are... you?”

“I am Nisha, my Zenith. My spark bound to yours for all time.” She ran a very light finger down his arm, then lower leg. “You are pale. You have lost too much blood. But to stay here long and treat you fully would likely lose far more than that. You will live, my Zenith. Pain will be your companion for only a little while longer.”

She gestured to Joy, who produced a small pack from nowhere and tossed it over. It must have been a first aid pack.  Nisha gently peeled the velvet from his back, poured cool water over the wounds and began to layer light bandages, wrapping the strips of cloth crosswise around his chest. Pyrrhus snagged the waterskin from her clumsily and drank, his thirst reasserting itself violently with the scent and sound of the water. 

“Oooh,” Joy said suddenly, stepping around Ash and looking back the way they’d come. Her smile turned feral. “Some of your friends are persistent. Let’s send them on their way.”

Pyrrhus followed her gaze. A pair of nephracks, on foot and looking a little worse for wear already, strode purposefully down the road. Ash’s smile matched his Bondmate’s. “Yes. Let’s.”

Joy blurred and a clawstrider, feathered in vibrant blue appeared in her place. The blue lost saturation and darkened as she darted into the long bleached grass beside the road, vanishing from his sight. Ash raised his hand and clenched it: liquid black essence seeped up from the ground, pooling like a rainfall in reverse, and streamed upward to his fist. A warhammer like the one he’d been forced to leave in the town behind them coalesced in his grip; he swung it experimentally and headed back down the road after Joy.

“Should you go help them?” Pyrrhus said, dropping the waterskin. 

“I would, were I needed,” Nisha said. “Joy is a capable warrior. Those two should pose no problems to her, especially with her Mate at her side.” 

The fight was almost over before she had finished speaking. Joy called out to Ash as he approached them warily - “Just start swinging now, would you dear?” While Pyrrhus watched, Ash engaged them from the front, keeping their attention with blind but brutal swings of his hammer. 

The nephracks, sensing an easy target in the blinded Deathknight, eagerly closed the distance, dodging the wild swings.  Joy ambushed them from behind while they were so distracted, seizing their legs and dragging them down, dispatching them with the terrible claw her form was famous for.

“See? Entirely competent.” Nisha finished, put away the aid things, and tossed the pack to Joy as the other Lunar trotted up. Her feather-crest was jauntily up, pleased. Joy caught the pack in her teeth and snapped down on it, sending it back to the Elsewhere from which it had come. 

Nisha’s form blurred, and a simhata knelt behind Pyrrhus. The same bioluminescent markings of Nisha’s woman-self glowed brighter and more numerous across her glossy black coat. She already wore tack and armor, a saddle meant for carrying wounded riders from a battlefield strapped to her chest and back.

Pyrrhus just slumped, his forehead pressed into the shaggier mane of her neck as her great lion head curved around. It was too much to process - his Lunar Mate? Showing up * _ now _ * of all times and places. If it were even true... but he hadn’t the energy to care. He was alive - all else could wait. If they wished to bring them back to Creation, then fine. A shiver radiated out from his bones, shaking him uncontrollably and unceasingly. Nisha breathed into the newly-short hair at the back of his neck, a whuff of warm that flowed down his shoulders. 

Joy, returned to her womanly self, came over and together with Ash got Pyrrhus into the saddle and buckled securely in. There was no position he could ride in that didn’t jar his arms or legs, or throb them painfully if he lay flat against her back, so he slouched instead with his numb fingers tucked against his sides. Nisha rose smoothly, checked on him over her shoulder, then stretched out into a run.

They made much better progress now, as Joy led them off the road towards a softly glowing beacon in the distance. They ran now, to either side of Nisha - the simhata form kept her gait matched with theirs, running easily over the broken ground. 


	11. Full Moon's Fury

The obsidian obelisk, while dwarfed by the Stygian buildings around it, was still quite a monument. The runes twisting down its sides glowed a pure golden-white, like sunlight in high summer. Tall white pillars of stone stood spaced around it at paired intervals, marking it as the border of a shadowland. Oh, gods, it was so close.

But not without obstacles before it. 

The quartet huddled, silent and chilled, in the wreckage of a building brought down by the quake. A fissure ran through the middle of its elaborately mosaic floored courtyard, running straight for the obelisk and giving them a clear line of sight. 

Alasuin and yet another gang of war ghosts, captained by a few Ghost-Blooded officers, lounged around the obelisk. The war ghosts stood more-or-less on guard, gazing out between the stone plinths into the Underworld beyond. 

“Pointless,” Alasuin was complaining in a nasal whine. “Why guard the stupid shadowland at all?” Her voice trailed off as she paced around the other side of the obelisk, picking up rocks and debris and hurling them with such force they shattered when they hit. 

“We’ll have... to go through... them, won’t we?” Pyrrhus said. The ride, as smooth as Nisha could make it, had still not been gentle for him. He leaned against the walls of the building, staring out through the broken window, his makeshift cloak tucked in tightly around him. 

Joy chuckled. “There’s no ‘we’ in this, Solar. You sit tight right here, and we’ll handle little miss deathcult. You too, Madeus. You’d need eyes for this fight. Nisha and I are used to fighting together.”

Ash growled, frustrated. He shuffled his feet until he found Pyrrhus and knelt down beside him, one hand braced on the conjured warhammer. “I will guard the Solar.”

“I will take care of that,” Nisha replied. “Joy, go make a target of yourself. I will follow. They may sense my sorcery so you must be ready.” 

Joy was already running, darting to the side of their building and around. A moment later came the enraged, reverberating roar of a tyrant lizard, and Joy’s cobalt-feathered war-form leapt into the space defined by the stone plinths.  

“Ah, a good fight to end our quest,” Nisha smiled. “Now, before I make my own appearance--”

She gathered a double-fistful of her own silvery moonlight essence, pooling it in her cupped hands like pure water. She whispered something as Pyrrhus watched, her breath sending small ripples across its mirror surface. Then, throwing it towards the ceiling, she sketched a glyph in the air.

Wind suddenly blasted in from all five directions, flattening Pyr’s cloak to his body and whipping Nisha’s short dark hair. The winds swirled, becoming tighter and more solid. From within the vortex a massive wolfhound materialized, the size of his own warhorse. The dog’s shaggy coat carried all five elemental colors in its brindled stripes. The winds died with a keen and the wolfhound sat, watching Nisha intently. 

“Good doggie,” she crooned, scratching it behind the ears until its tongue lolled out and its tail thumped the floor. “Now. You are to guard and protect these men and obey them as you would myself.”

The wolfhound looked back at Pyrrhus and Ash, woofed once softly, and went to lay at Pyrrhus’ feet. Pyr offered the hound a hand to sniff, which was politely and very gently licked. 

Nisha smiled and dove out the window, blurring to the form of a massive, prehensile-tailed saber-toothed cat. The hound whined briefly after her, and the pair watched as the Lunars turned a “pointless” sentry watch into a bloody brawl.

“What is happening?” Ash asked, face oriented on the tyrant lizard’s roars in the courtyard. His fist tightened on the warhammer’s grip.

“Alasuin... is casting some sort of sorcery. The others with her are attacking Joy but she is quick.” Pyrrhus replied, watching.

Alasuin’s outraged shrieks were followed by a flashing wave of ivory essence; the hound immediately leapt to crouch over Pyrrhus and Ash, sheltering them from the painful knife-edge of the necromancy the deathknight had cast. 

“Flesh Sloughing Wave? How predictable-” Nisha’s drawling voice was over-loud and mocking. He could see her standing on the roof of another building, some way across the plaza, making herself a prime target. She clapped her hands and from between them erupted a flash of ruby and diamond that streaked toward the other Deathknight, almost faster than the eye could follow. 

Joy nabbed a ghost-blooded by the arm, her teeth sinking deep into its elbow, and leapt away from Alasuin, dragging her bloody prey. Half a heartbeat later the sorcery struck, screaming the victory cry of a garda bird, and the plaza erupted into essence-fueled flames. The heat-flash rippled over the plaza, catching the nearest warghosts aflame.

“Nisha has cast some sort of fire sorcery,” Pyrrhus continued, narrating for Ash. “It has set the plaza on fire, as well as some of the war ghosts. Alasuin was at the center --”

Joy pounced on the last ghost-blooded officers and did a very good impression of a butcher, ripping them into their constituent parts. Her fighting style had not an ounce of finesse, but she was quick, efficient, and downright vicious. 

“Won’t be long,” Pyrrhus said, leaning half over the wolfhound to get a better view. The hound’s tail thumped the floor in agreement. “This is a sorcerer’s battle. I don’t know enough of the spells--”

“Guarantee you Alasuin will try her hungry-shadow spell.” Ash said. “She just learned it and was boasting about how she’ll kill one of you with it.”

The flames subsided with a snap as Alasuin rose from them; her dress singed, her hair crisped and most of her skin bright red and beginning to blister.  She snarled. “You  _ *bitch _ *!”

Alasuin spat on the ground; a black tarry viscous mass that streaked across the ground towards Nisha. But the Lunar had already left her perch, diving off the roof and landing out of sight with a neat flip. Joy flung a piece of flaming debris into the viscous shadow with a flip of her muscled tail; the tar-creature keened, a high hissing wail, and vanished. 

“Where’d you go, little sorcerer?” Alasuin said, gathering bilious green essence into her hands for a simple brute force strike. It was entirely familiar to Pyr - she’d tried to use the same on him, just before he’d killed her. That battle felt like half a lifetime ago; a lifetime of agony.

Nisha said nothing. In a display of rapid, precise shapeshifting, she rose from the ground, shedding a snake skin and silently gaining muscle, teeth, and fur. Pyrrhus had been impressed by a Lunar’s war form on several occasions, and Nisha was no exception.  The felinoid wrapped soft-pawed fingers around the Deathknight’s throat, squeezing so hard that their hidden claws dug into the alabaster skin. 

Alasuin’s face flushed and she choked, scrabbling at Nisha’s claws. The green essence guttered out, dripping off her hands and steaming against the pitted ground.  Silver moonlight essence sparked through Nisha’s midnight fur; the Lunar lifted her off the ground and with a grunt and a heave, flung her into space. 

“Team Rocket blasting off again,” Nisha growled, tracking the arc of her throw until a puff of dust in the distance announced the Deathknight’s crash landing. Her features softened and she shrank back down into her mortal face.

“Oh, that was good!” Joy chirped. She stomped down on the last war ghost, her silvered claws ripping through its armored back. It collapsed into a wisp of black smoke and Joy shook herself down to her blue-haired mortal self. 

The two Lunars trotted back into the hiding place of the ruined building, well pleased with themselves. Nisha helped Pyrrhus up onto the wolfhound’s back, then, with her hand on his hip to steady him, and Ash on his other side, led them all across the border into Creation in a shimmer of silver Essence.


	12. Unfolding Creation

Sunlight - real, golden, brilliant sunlight - hit him like a hammer. He gasped; essence flooded his system, burning through his channels, an unstoppable wildfire. It - almost - hurt. He sat a little straighter, caste mark flaring at the sudden excess of energy. His fingertips tingled, and he could almost flex his hands again. A little attention and they’d be that much closer to healed - Soon. Just a little longer.

Once his eyes cleared from the glare, his sight matched what had been reported by his ears. There was a very angry behemoth wrapped in, around, and through the buildings surrounding them. As he’d thought, the Shadowland had spit them out in the heart of the City of Night, New Meru’s opposite number on the far side of the mountain. 

The behemoth - a serpentine thing with pearly white pebbled skin and red eyes - hissed like a teakettle. Pillars of stone, broken and jagged, had been driven through its flesh, staking it to the ground. It was writhing furiously, but had only managed to tear its own wounds wider. 

The behemoth spotted them and stopped wriggling, staring at the four of them. A surprisingly civil voice poured out of its toothy maw. “Well, Lightbringer, you look like someone dragged you through Malfeas backwards. Who’re your friends?”

“...Raksi?”

“Of course. I was on my way to rescue you.” Her sauroid face crinkled smugly. 

“I appreciate it. This is Nisha, and Joy, chosen of Luna. And Ashen Memory.” Joy had already shifted larger, her silver tattoos glimmering in the blue feathery fur of her tyrant-lizard warform. She tested the first pillar in her jaws, then with a massive flex of her neck yanked it free. 

With her upper half clear, Raksi twisted back on herself and yanked the other pillars from her long body. As soon as the last was clear of her flesh, she shrunk down into her usual womanly self, brushing smears of blood from her skin. “Mistress is a pain in the ass.” 

Pyrrhus smiled weakly. “She didn’t exactly escape unscathed, herself.”

“Good.” Raksi lifted blood-stained claws to her mouth and licked them clean, slanted eyes feral. Pyrrhus was suddenly reminded exactly how far Raksi was from mortal, or even from one like himself. She might be sane now, but she was still several millennia old. Raksi turned her regard to him and sniffed deeply. “Broken bones, fresh blood and death essence... Let’s get you back-- That’s new. What is  _ that? _ ”

She poked him in the chest gently. Pyrrhus followed her movements; in the middle of his sternum, just peeking above the crossed bandages, was a black, charred mark. Mostly circular and the size of his closed fist, it was very like an Eclipse caste mark, but with a maze of rays between the inner and outer disk. He touched it gingerly but it didn’t hurt or feel any different than his normal skin. It hung like a pendant just below the golden script of his orichalcum tattoo. “I... I don’t know.” 

Raksi stood on tiptoes, examining it. “I don’t sense any sorceries. It’s likely not actively harmful... but we’ll take a better look later.”

“He will be cleansed,” Nisha said, a protective growl just perceptible beneath her words. “I will take care of my Zenith.”

The two Lunars stared at each other; behind them, Joy giggled and looped her arm through Ash’s, watching the contest. Nisha blinked first, but her determined stance didn’t change. Her hand twitched slightly on Pyr’s hip, fingers curling.

“Ah. I see.” Raksi smiled slyly. “Oh, won’t this be interesting to watch. I remember you, Nisha - Onyx Wind.” The Elder Lunar glanced up at Pyrrhus. “Well, let’s get back to the city and healed up... We’ll talk later.” 


	13. Chapter 13

###  _Long Gone Day_

The girl was there, at the manse, when they arrived. The warhound beneath his chest growled warningly as they approached. Nisha’s fingers tightened warily in the cloth of his covering velvet curtain-turned-cloak. He should say something. Let them know -

 “Master! You’re back! Oh, Sol Invictus -” Rael - that was her name. Ray-el like a light. Rael clapped a hand to her mouth in horror and disappeared within the manse. Within moments, the door had cycled fully open and warm, humid, green-smelling air spilled out over them from the growing rooms within.

Raksi nodded sharply. “I’ll leave you to your healing, then. Rael can - and will - handle anything you need. Come along, little Joy. You and your new friend. Let’s have a talk.” She stared hard at Nisha for a long moment. “You and I - we’ll have our discussion later.”

Nisha simply moved so to support Pyrrhus as the Hound whined and misted away from beneath him; its summons had run out. His feet jarred the ground briefly and he sucked in a breath as the crushed bones scraped against each other. Nisha turned and walked into the Manse, following Rael as she beckoned them in.

Raksi sighed loudly behind them but turned back into the city, Joy and Ash following her.  “Raksi -” Pyrrhus called hoarsely over Nisha’s shoulder. “Don’t be hard on him. He’s under Arbiter Judgment - and he rescued me.”

The Elder Lunar smiled back over at the Deathknight rather suspiciously. “Oh really. Well, then.”

Rael had the lift’s doors open and was standing in the threshold to keep them that way as Nisha made her careful way inside.  “It won’t... break on us this time, will it... Rael?”

 “No, Master,” she said, with a small smile. “I made sure.”

☼ ☼ ☼

He could let go.

At last, he let go. Safe - relatively - in his own Manse, laid on his stomach on his own bed - and it was a bed, now, his couch had been replaced - with the familiar scents of incense, growing plants, and the oil he used to clean his swords hovering in a cloud around him. He sighed and sank down into the mattress, shutting out the sounds of Nisha moving about the room, the _shush_ of air moving in the vents, and the far off murmur of ... he didn’t even have the energy to figure out what that sound was, only that it was soothing, and _normal._

The girl had left them, taking away the bloodied curtain-slash-cloak, leaving a kettle of hot water and an array of medicinal salves and bandaging materials. He could smell the sharp green herbal scent of them still, see the smear of it on his shoulder and feel the drying paste on his nose where Mistress had lashed him. His thirst had subsided for now, after cups of purified water from the Manse’s reservoirs, and Rael had promised a meal as soon as it could be managed.

Pyrrhus cracked an eye open. His hand lay in front of his face, a swollen mangled piece of flesh. He tried flexing his fingers, channeling a healing charm through the bone fragments  and crushed tendons. He could feel it sink into the abused flesh and begin to work, but it would be several hours before any improvement.

“Let me, my Zenith,” came Nisha’s voice from behind him. Her hands, cool touches of silver, flickered down his back like rain, leaving only empty numbness behind with none of the seductive pleasure of the Deathlord’s necrotic essence.

He could see ripples of silver light on the walls, like reflections from a pool. They grew brighter as the light of the Sun dimmed quietly into evening. He was drifting, floating on a lustrous pink-grey fog. _“Ah. There is the shock taking hold,”_ he remembered thinking.  

“Ah, Calansei. I am sorry I was not there.” Nisha had her hands on his legs, kneading and smoothing the abused flesh. It should have been agonizing, but the pain was draining away. Lightly she stroked down, over the long column of his thighs and soothing the swollen flesh of shins and ankles.

Something hidden and sleeping roused within his mind over the long minutes of Nisha’s healing. It saw the familiar Manse, heard the lover’s voice, sensed the Mate’s essence, and groggily came to the surface. Pyrrhus was fading into exhausted, traumatized semi-consciousness, and the other mind - the other _him,_ the one with millennia of memories from ages past - rose and melded with him, smoothing into his fractures. The other - Calansei - remembered another battle’s aftermath, another mangled body soothed to health by the touch of his celestial partner.

They spoke together through Pyr’s throat, but the voice that emerged was unfamiliar - huskier, a little warmer, the words drawled without Pyrrhus’ usual precise diction and careful phrasing.   “There was nothing you could have done, _tesoro_.”

“I am sure--”

“It happened as it happened.” Calansei sighed in relief as her ministrations blended with the essence already working in his arms. The bones straightened and began to knit, fluids drained off and the tightness of swollen flesh eased to deep bruising aches. A web of argent essence wrapped the arm from palm to elbow, coalescing slowly into a honeycombed resin form. Similar ones were settling -- as light as cobweb but as immovable as jade -- around his lower legs.

“Calan. You should have waited for me -”

“No, Onyx. Leave it be. I’ll hear no more regrets. Not tonight.” He rolled, slightly, and sat up with nothing more than his core muscle, keeping the weight off his wrists. The woman he knew as Onyx Wind moved with him, kneeling behind him. She growled instead a reply, infusing the sound with her displeasure.

He’d infused the wounds of his back with essence while Onyx had smeared them with salve, and they were slowly closing - scabbed over and beginning to heal much faster than a mortal’s. Onyx sniffed deeply and suspiciously at the wounds, then picked up the gauze padding and strips of bandage. She laid the padding carefully over his back and wrapped them with the bandaging; a nicer job than she’d been able to do hastily in the underworld. “I can still smell the death essence on you, Zenith. If the ointment doesn’t purge it...”

“We will figure it out.” The lift doors chimed quietly, and Pyrrhus modestly twitched the blankets across his lap before they opened. Rael entered with a tray, and Nisha immediately slid off the bed to take it from her. She set it on the corner of the small table next to the bed and handed Pyrrhus a bowl from it.

It was soup - a rich meat broth with thin slices well cooked curling around the profusion of soft noodles and shreds of vegetables, even half a soft-boiled egg. Calansei picked up his spoon with shaky fingers and dug in before Pyrrhus could offer resistance. He had not eaten meat since the days of his novitiate, following the strict dietary regimen of the Immaculate Order. _*”Lost a lot of blood. This will help,”_ * came the drawling thought, along with _*”To Malfeas with your ‘regimen’ - those never work like the adherents say they do*_.”

“How are you feeling, Master?” the girl asked quietly, moving to tidy the remains of the medical supplies.

He slurped a mouthful of noodles appreciatively. “I’m in no danger of death, yet. Thank you, Mistress. I will be much better after a rest and a bath.”

“Of course.”

He must have faded out again. Rael was gone. The bowl was empty - Pyrrhus didn’t remember finishing it, or the cup of strong tea that was also empty by his right hand, though the scent and taste of it lingered on his palate. The warmth of the meal was seeping through his flesh, like life returning in the spring.

Nisha gently took the bowl from his slack fingers. “My poor Calan. It has been so long to find you, and then finally - but in such a state.” She hummed, stroking the line of the wrap on his arm gingerly. “I have missed you, my Zenith.”

And with that, she leaned forward and kissed him, deeply. Pyrrhus made a strangled noise in the back of this throat, but Calansei remembered, and Calansei reached up to her face, pulling her closer with one hand twined in her short dark hair, the other around her waist.  //He returned the kiss with interest, almost bruisingly hard with <desire/need/something>. She pressed herself against him where he sat, her arms loosely draped over his shoulders.

“I see you have missed me too, Zenith,” she purred huskily, twitching his blanket aside. Mistress’ contaminating necrotic essence had begun to tingle down the length of his spine, heightening the illicit pleasure that was his body’s - his still _nude_ body’s - reaction to the length of pliant female pressed against him, making it quite clear that his body, did, in fact, miss her.

Onyx gave a peculiar shrug - a wave of dim silver essence, like a bird’s feathers rousing, cascaded down from her shoulders and her clothing disappeared in its wake.  Pyrrhus noted in a far corner of his mind that the pattern of luminescent markings on her skin went all the way down, following the curves of her body. They were bright now, against the deep rich brown of her skin - the same color as a leopard’s rosettes.

 _"No - Stop, I am - This is not -”_ Calansei silenced Pyrrhus’ objections with a pleased growl, leaning back and pulling Onyx Wind down on top of him.  Calansei turned his head long enough to drawl a command at the Manse. Symbols in Old Realm appeared on the lift’s doors across the suite, the windows, and the skylight iris. A sheet of flooring slid into place over the stairwell, leaving them in sunset limned privacy as they sank down into the bed together.


	14. If I Had A Heart

He wandered down paths deep and dark, under ancient twisted trees with faces hidden in their knotted bark and fists clenched in the knobby branches. His outstretched fingers touched thorns and brambles, leaving hair-thin streaks of blood across his hands and bare feet. He didn’t know how long he’d been walking or how long he had yet to go; he drifted in that timeless urgency that only dreams and visions conveyed. 

Only starlight lit his path, flickering in half-seen glimmers, catching the contours of the forest in blue-white outlines. There was something dancing through the trees just ahead of him, glinting gold, and he knew he had to get to it, but it seemed more important to be walking. He was only half-asleep, still aware that he lay alone on his bed, limbs sprawled in whatever way seemed least likely to jar them.

A tree to his left straightened, its wrinkled bark like a hood turning to face him, rising with the creak of old wet wood. A crack, a lipless mouth, formed, opened, spoke. The voice of his Circlemate spilled forth in a wash of viscous luminescent green sap. “Finally caught you without your consorts. Wake up. We need to talk.” 

“Gaelen...?” Pyrrhus groped for consciousness; climbing up the limbs of the tree while thorny vines wrapped his arms as he rose. He thrashed - and immediately regretted it as pain shot through his broken wrists all the way to his chest and shocked him all the way out of the dream. It was blankets tangled around his arms, not vines, and it took him a moment to extricate himself and sit up, wrapping the blanket awkwardly around his waist. 

He was both chagrined and indifferent to being caught nude by the Night Caste - on the one hand, he’d already been stripped and whipped by Mistress - what else could be worse than that? - on the other hand, this was Gaelen, whom he’d known for years. 

“Gaelen?” he asked again, voice gone raspy and thick with sleep and the ghosts of too much screaming. He could still feel the memory-shadow of the last holder of his Spark, Calansei, smoothing over the cracks in his own psyche, ready to prompt with his own personality. It was almost like that long ago experience on the airship to Sion... “Consorts, what do you mean... Nisha was... Where is she?”

“She left. We need to talk about your plans.” Across the room, standing by the workbench, was a cowled and cloaked figure. The other threw back the hood and the too-familiar features of Gaelen’s second incarnation watched him carefully. Pyrrhus had spent seasons expecting that face to kill him; to be the last thing he saw one dark night. It wasn’t reassuring to see it now.

Pyrrhus scrubbed at his face, trying to force some semblance of alertness. Exhaustion dragged at him, made him snappish and growly and out of sorts. The scant rest he’d already had only made him feel worse; the ache in his newly-set bones draining away his interest in this encounter with every throbbing heartbeat. “Gods, Gaelen... does it have to be now? It’s not really been the best... month.” 

“I believe it.” Gaelen cocked his head in that way he had, like a dog hearing a strange sound. “You look like shit.  Are you going to be battle ready by morning?” 

“I hadn’t noticed,” Pyrrhus snapped. “Manse -  _ lucere _ .” Light - dim, and softly orange like a single candle, bloomed from hidden tracks in the ceiling, casting an even glow across the room, just enough to see by. “No -- I’m in no shape to stand, much less fight. Why? What are you talking about?”

“I've been traveling with the Army, gathering intelligence. It's quite the upset you've created. Almost every single one of the ‘pious’ Dragon Bloods is coming up the mountain to meet you right now. They’ll be here in the morning.” Gaelen watched him, only his eyes moving. 

“Yes? I asked for them. Well - for help.” He gestured with a thumb over his shoulder up the mountain. 

“They're out for blood. I hope you realize it’s _your_ blood they’re after. Specifically: the Paragon of Wood plans to challenge you to a duel, make a spectacle of killing you in front of the rest of the army.  It'll allow her to solidify her position as supreme among the Dragon Blood. So I gotta know. You're the one who precipitated this whole thing in the first place. I don't want to be tripping over each other like we usually do. What’s your plan?“ Gaelen’s tone was carefully even; his face might as well have been a mask in a play as he stood with arms crossed over his chest. 

“_I_ precipitated?!” Pyrrhus snarled. Burbling rage ignited in his chest - the anger he always suppressed and redirected whenever Gaelen prodded him. His captivity had stripped his filters from him, and he didn’t have the energy to put them back. Gods, how he wanted to stand up, lash out - let some of the turbulence vent in physical motion. “Mistress started this war. I didn’t see anyone else coming to stand against her. Where were you? Where’s the _entire_ rest of Creation?”

“No need to start pointing fingers. I simply meant you’re the one who sent liaisons to the Immaculate Order for help. I just want to know what your endgame is.” Gaelen raised gloved hands, open palmed. 

“I don’t have an endgame, Gaelen. I have _never_ had an end game. We needed more might to defend the Pole; they fight anathema. Can you think of anything more antithetical to Creation than Mistress trying to turn it all into a shadowland?” He braced his elbows on his knees and dropped his face into his hands, the anger boiling away as quickly as it had come, replaced by crawling despair. “Two Solars, one Lunar and a handful of Dragonblooded weren’t going to be enough, here.”

“I can't say I'm surprised. In that case let me propose a plan.” The Night Caste sat down on the bench, adopting the pose of a teacher or a lecturer. His hands gestured as he explained, earnestness clear in his tone. Gaelen needed this plan to work, needed his Circlemate to just for _once_ go along with him, without quibbling over the morality of it. 

“Meru and the Mistress are the anvil  on which the Dragonblooded theocracy can finally be crushed. I've done the math. From the five Paragons we started out with - one of them has already been killed by us and we spent another three months indoctrinating the second. I am confident if we take out one more Paragon, the remaining two should not be a problem. The people will see it as a true sign of weakness: their own exalted leaders - both physically and supposedly spiritually - are incapable of defending themselves against the anathema. They’ll look weak and their grip on power will crumble as a result.”

“All you have to do is stand up to yet another Paragon and defeat them in combat. But I suppose that's the problem, the reason why I was really hoping you had a plan besides die horribly or hope everything works out.”  Gaelen lifted a hand towards Pyrrhus, fingers and eyebrow cocked expectantly, waiting for a reply.

Pyrrhus lifted his head and stared at his Circlemate for a long time, searching the other’s features for some hint this was a terrible prank. He found nothing. “You’re cracked. You’ve finally lost it for good. I’ve never _defeated_ a Paragon - For Sol’s sake, Gaelen, I went down into that hell to _rescue_ a Paragon; what would ever make you think I would kill one? I am a _Lama_ - the Order is _my_ Order! It’s broken, in need of healing, I grant you, but I don’t want it dead.”

“No, Gaelen. There’s a lesson they need to learn, one I just learned,” his hand went involuntarily to his chest, fingers touching the smooth orichalcum embedded in his skin, “but no one can learn if they’re dead.” 

“Now I admit, running a religion is definitely useful and effective. I don't mean to downplay your accomplishments. I still don't fully understand how you have managed to both have it as an open secret you’re ‘anathema’ while still being highly respected, and while taking the fame for killing a Paragon.” Gaelen shook his head, as if in disbelief. Then he looked up, caught his Circlemate’s eyes, deadly serious. “But we _both_ know you’re a fake. I was the one who actually killed the Red Coal Bodhisattva. You were just the visible combatant. Perhaps we might be able to arrange something like that tomorrow, it will be a lot harder with all of us out in the open like this.” 

A flood of vicious denials started up out of Pyr’s throat with every new sentence the Night Caste uttered, fighting each other for the rights to be first spoken. “Fame! Fame? I never - He was my friend! My mentor - You - _You_ killed him?”

Pyrrhus’ hand clenched into a fist, reaching for a sword and for a brief moment the familiar hilt of his Arbiter blade sputtered into being. But he stopped, with a visible effort of will, and his hand spasmed back open nearly immediately, the muscles and tendons too weak yet to hold a blade - or a fist, or a pen. The Arbiter weapon faded away, dispersing back into his essence channels. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths through the nose. “Count yourself fortunate I’m _not_ battle ready. I’ve broken one vow tonight, one more makes no difference.” 

Gaelen blanched but did not speak, the color draining slowly from his face under the dim orange light.  He studied Pyrrhus’s broken limbs and shaking hands and slowly relaxed, carrying on as if nothing happened. “Emotional outbursts aside.  I do want you to consider the freedom of the mortals on the Blessed Isle.  The Immaculate Order is an oppressive regime from their perspective and-- no wait, sorry I forgot I shouldn’t try to convince you of that.  Either way, it wouldn’t hurt the masses to have the Immaculate Order taken down a notch.”  

Pyrrhus snorted, dropping his hands back to his lap. As if the Dynasts weren’t just as oppressive. In some places, even more so, and the Immaculates were the mortals’ champions. No matter. Gaelen might learn one day, once Pyr’s schools and disciples had spread. It might take a Dragonblood’s lifetime, but it would change the face of the Realm. Presuming they survived the next few weeks. 

Gaelen rubbed his eyebrows.  “No, this is coming out all wrong.  I didn’t come here to badger you.  I wanted to warn you and see if you had a plan for survival.  Believe it or not, you dying won’t do anyone any good.  There hasn’t been any prominent Solar--”  Gaelen sighed.  

“Just head out of town already.”  His tone switched to pleading. If he couldn’t get an opportunity to enact _his_ plan, he could at least save his Circlemate from certain and humiliating death. “Just get out of sight.  If you’re not around as a target then the whole ‘duel’ idea will fizzle and they can focus on Mistress.  You don’t need to play target dummy in your...,” he gestured at all of him, “...state.  Sit this one out, will you?”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem with suicide to prove a point a year ago,” Pyr muttered darkly, then spoke up, voice pitched so it was intended to be heard. His voice was flatter, this time, as all the emotion had drained from him with the previous flares.  “I don’t think I can. Like you said, I brought them here. It was my request, made legitimately by an elder of the Order. If my blood, my death, is the cost to unite the armies of the Isle against their biggest threat, to finally take out Mistress, then I’ll pay it. Better me than Akaris.”

Gaelen ignored the first comment.  “I still have contacts with the Jadeborn.  They can smuggle you out of here and I really doubt anyone will be able to track it.  Hell, we can have them collapse the tunnels on their way out.  You can walk away from this.  Or… hobble in your case.”

“Do you know how I got this?” Pyrrhus asked, raising an arm briefly. 

Gaelen half-shrugged.  “Doing the right thing, of course.”

“Fuck you.” The expletive came too easily. Pyrrhus scrubbed at his face again. It must be nearing third watch and he was still. So. Tired. “Mistress caught me, during one of the skirmishes we’ve been having here since the first shadow wave.  We’ve been fighting nearly every day for months. She caught me, brought me to one of her fortresses.”

It was... surprisingly hard to speak of it. But Gaelen had been down to that place with him once before. It was easier to tell him, here in the dim of the Manse, than he imagined it would be to tell the tale in the broad daylight, to anyone else. Maybe after this, he’d be able to face telling the others, telling Akaris and Raksi. Gaelen worked in the shadows, in the dark places. Maybe - just maybe - he would understand.  “I... Why am I telling you. This isn’t so you can use it as a flail against me later. I’ve had enough of that.”

“A fortress. In the Underworld. She, well, tortured me. The word isn’t adequate to the experience.” He turned, slightly, so Gaelen could see the half-healed wreck of his back. Nisha had bandaged as much of it as she could, but the damage had been extensive and not all of it could be covered so easily. “Then she had my wrists, my legs, smashed to pulp and dropped me in a Monstrance.” 

The memory of that place, of the Whispers, still seared his mind and he winced recalling it. “Rose told you about the Neverborn. How they whisper in your head, how you can’t escape it, how they break you. They - nearly - did. But there was another one. It was different - it kept the others from destroying me. And it gave me... Something lost from before even the Primordial war. Something that can break the cycle of Usurpations.”

“I was afraid of dying in that place. And even more afraid of breaking. It would have been worthless. It would have cost Creation its very existence - can you imagine a Deathknight under Mistress’ command with the power I have, the knowledge I have? But now - if dying means this lost thing gets sown again - then I won’t shy away from it.” He tapped the word on his chest, written in Old Realm script. “I brought it back. I have to live it.”

It was a tangled explanation, but the meaning of that Virtue he’d been given by Oblige was coming clearer, the knowledge he’d been gifted unfolding in his mind like a difficult text studied for months - for years. Displaying that virtue would give it back to others, and what was more humbling than owning up to one’s flaws? The Paragon of Wood was still, technically, his superior, and if she called for his blood, he would have to answer.

Gaelen waited quietly for Pyrrhus to finish his story.  “So you’ve tasted darkness.  I would think that could make you more reasonable.  But if you’re still determined to throw your life away on a gesture, then maybe that’s not the case.  Look, you’ve provided us with a great opportunity here.  Just stay out of sight and let the battle unfold naturally.  You’ve still got Raksi here and some lesser exalts that can handle the fighting.  Where is Akaris anyways?  We’re going to need her if you’re still going to follow through on my plan to use the manses as a weapon to take down Mistress.”

“_Tasted_. Uh-huh.” No, of course not. Gaelen never did understand him. He was naive to have thought otherwise. “Akaris is in the South. Finishing her final trials for the Adamant Circle of sorcery.”  Pyrrhus turned, brought his feet up and set his back gingerly against the wall at the head of the bed. “Thanks for the warning, Gaelen. I won’t leave myself but... If I don’t make it, take care of Angelline and Aelius. Get them away. There’s a kingdom in the East; Adrelith, on the Meridian Isle. Their Queen is a friend, my family will be safe there.”

Gaelen sighed.  “If you really mean to go through with this, at least don’t embarrass us.  Put up a good fight.  Here,” a small amber stone appeared from the shadow of his hand.  “This hearthstone will allow you to block out pain.  You’ll be able to hold out long enough to make a good show of it.”  Gaelen tried not to let his hand tremble and betray the crucial detail.  His plan needed at least some time while they were in combat, every death needed a visible cause.  His old compatriot was not cooperating.

Pyrrhus broke into laughter only slightly verging on hysteria. He clutched at his sides, curling around his arms as the fit strained the healing skin on his back and fresh blood seeped into the covering cloth. It took him a moment to shove the manic mirth away. “A good show! _Embarrass_ you? Gods, Gaelen. If it were only pain that was the issue, it could be worked through.” 

He gestured at his lower leg, completely encased in the honeycomb cast. “My bones were smashed like glass; they’re in more fragments than Tepet’s legions. There’s nothing for the muscles to anchor to. It’s physics. I couldn’t hold a weapon if I wanted; you saw that earlier. The only thing even keeping them straight right now is this.” He tapped the honeycomb with a slack finger.

Gaelen’s hand dropped to his side.  It’d all come to nothing.  All his plans were not enough to save his friend from his own stubbornness.  He would have to focus instead on the fate of the mortals of the Blessed Isle. He stood up, pulling his hood back up over his head. That woman - the Lunar, with those Tells - was coming back, he could hear her wings on the night air. There was still work to be done, alone.  

“Goodbye, my friend,” Gaelen said quietly.  He turned walked into a wall cloaked in shadow - and was gone.

Pyrrhus gritted his teeth and refrained from punching the wall by the slimmest of margins. Conversations with Gaelen had always been an exercise in futility and misinterpretations. They never went anywhere, just circled each other and snapped like rival dogs. The Night Caste had vanished, months ago, and Pyrrhus had almost forgotten the frustration the man caused him. 

A big cat, black like shadow and marked with what was now becoming a familiar pattern of bioluminescent lines and spots, climbed the stairs slowly. It leapt the last four onto the edge of the stairwell with a final deliberate hop and stood there, its blunt-muzzled head swinging back and forth, nostrils flaring and whiskers pricked far forward. The cat’s long prehensile tail lashed once, then with a wave of thin silver essence Nisha stood in its place. 

“Bad dreams, my Zenith?” she asked, stalking across the room towards him. “I smell fresh blood.”

“Hmm. And bad memories.” 

“I shall give you something else to dwell upon,” she purred, carefully climbing onto the bed and straddling him. 

“Why not.” He tipped his head up to meet her. 

“Manse,  _ lucirse. _ ” 

The light faded slowly to the black of deep night, leaving only the flickering glow of the Lunar’s Tell.


	15. Not At Home

Pyrrhus roused from sleep slowly, climbing out of a well of warmth and softness and the smells of sun-warmed blankets and... other things. He was still suffused with the heavy-limbed euphoria that follows amorous congress, flushed with warmth and pleasurable exertion and the sleep of a broken soul. The light slowly seeping through curtains and door cracks was thin with dawn, washing across the marbled floor in waves of pink pearlescence. 

Gentle chiming echoed throughout the suite, and Rael’s tentative “Master?” from the stairwell portal went unanswered as he gathered his wits. Once the sense of the call penetrated though, he felt the heat rising up his face.  

“... One... one moment,” Pyrrhus called, flustered, extricating himself from Nisha’s embrace. The Lunar hummed deep in her throat, her arm across his chest and one leg draped over his thigh possessively. Her lazy, feline smile as she watched him wake and the sudden realization of their shared nakedness did nothing to soothe his conscience as he started to wriggle out of the bed. Hadn’t he been wearing something when ---?

“Careful, Calan. You --”  Nisha’s warning came too late. Pyrrhus had gone to stand up and his legs had collapsed beneath him within a moment of his weight brought to bear on them. The honeycomb cast, fortunately, held, and while Pyr had not heard the snap of fresh-broken bones, pain shot up his shins to his knees. He stayed where he’d fallen, flat on the floor by the bed, breathing deliberately through his nose as he waited for the pain to recede. “They’ll not hold you yet. Let me -”

“I noticed,” Pyrrhus panted, getting an elbow up on the bed to lever himself up. Nisha slid out of bed beside him, helping him up to sit on the edge. With another shrug of silver-washed essence, loose wrapped robes of white and mint-green silk materialized on her body. 

She paused to kiss him briefly, ignoring his stunned freeze, then crossed to his desk and the chair there. Fresh clothes had been laid out; not the loose stuff for sleeping, but practical day garb like any he would have worn before, when not in armor. Nisha tossed him the blue Rus pants, wrapped tunic and socks, then turned and considered his weapons rack thoughtfully. 

“My name is not Calansei.” Pyrrhus said. He eased into the pants, wrapping the wide cloth belt and tucking the ends in. The resin immobilized his fragile limbs, making this simple task into an exercise in creative problem solving. 

“Manse - unlock the doors. Ah -  _ Aprirsi _ .” The word - Old Realm - was supplied immediately, from the satiated but slowly fading sense of Calansei in the back of his mind. 

Rael entered cautiously, holding a tray with what looked like an impressive breakfast spread - a pot of tea, rice porridge dusted with spice, several kinds of sliced fruit, and steamed buns.  She cleared the worktable neatly and set down the tray, then turned to the Lunar and made a brief curtsy. “Good morning Master. Nisha, Lady Raksi commands your attendance at the Pavilion of Forgotten Blossoms, on the north side of the city.”

Nisha turned from the weapons rack with a wooden staff in her hands, bristling at the girl. “Oh does she? And who does she think she is? That -- rrrr...” The Lunar’s luminous markings flushed an angry red, and a growl began deep in her throat. Rael instinctively shrank back against the bench, averting her eyes.  

“Behave,” Calansei snapped immediately. Pyrrhus shook his head. “Ah - Nisha, she’s only the messenger. Take it out on Raksi, if you must.”

“Be sure that I will.” The Lunar stalked past and handed him the staff - his ironwood staff, Pyrrhus recognized, one he’d not wielded since... since before his Second Breath - shifted into a raven and disappeared out an open window.

Pyr planted the staff solidly and stood, leaning most of his weight on it. It held and he was able to hobble slowly over towards the bench. “Thank you for breakfast, Rael. I - have you been here the whole time?” 

“Only while you were gone, Master.” She bit her lower lip, then finally broke from her indecision and slipped beneath Pyr’s other arm, taking some of his weight and helping him over to the seat. “I could have brought that to you - you didn’t have to--”

“I needed to,” he said shortly, settling rather more heavily to the bench than he’d intended. His fingers were still shaky and weak, his grip devoid of strength, but between Nisha’s ministrations and his own healing charms were improved. 

“Yes, Master.” Rael hovered, shifting slowly from foot to foot as he ate, her hands clasped behind her back.

Pyrrhus swallowed the last bite of steamed bun and sighed, turning around. “Was there something else, Rael?”

“Oh, no, Master. I just - Lady Raksi told me you weren’t to be left alone. Is there anything else I can do for you? Shall I fix your braid for you?” Rael’s fingers were plucking nervously at her sleeve, rolling the raw silk fabric. 

“N--” the words were nearly out of Pyrrhus’ mouth in immediate polite dismissal, his hand rising to wave her off, when he felt the brush of the honeycomb resin against the skin of his arm  and stopped. His fingers trembled when he tried to make a fist and spasmed open again after less than a heartbeat. The tremors continued, all the way up his arm and into the joint. He flicked his hand with a grimace and sighed through his nose. “...thank you, Rael. Would you?”

“I would be happy to.” The girl slipped behind him between the bench and the table, producing a shell comb from the pouch at her belt. She gathered the disheveled mass of electrum and blonde hair back from the crown of his head with gentle fingers, combing it through a little at a time. There was far less of it than there had been the last time he’d let her braid it - stuck in a lift, powerless.  The shock of hair cut off abruptly, just at the nape of the neck. “Mistress cut it. Didn’t she?”

“Yes,” he replied shortly. The fabric of his tunic smoothed as his shoulders tensed beneath it. 

“I am so glad you’ve come back, Master. We were afraid Raksi couldn’t reach you in time; that Mistress had killed you.” The strokes were even and light, and he closed his eyes to focus on  _ *that _ * sensation, above the myriad aches and throbbing pains that still plagued him. 

“No. She didn’t kill me.” A weight began to form around his heart, not unfamiliar but so much stronger than he’d ever felt before. A weight laced through with despair, with an irrational ache for oblivion, with the mantle of wasted centuries. “She brought me to the edge of death, over and over...”  _ *Until I longed for it.* _

“Oh... Master...” The comb clicked softly as it was set down, and the genuine anguish in the girl’s voice blurred his vision. He didn’t realize it was tears until drops fell to his hands in warm splashes of salt. He dropped his head into his hands, scrubbing at his eyes with the heel of one palm. Rael’s hands left his hair; he felt her cheek against his shoulder and her arms around his shoulders in the lightest of hugs. “You are home, now. You are... safer. Your wounds are tended... you look much better today than you did yesterday--”

The memory of Nisha’s body pressed lasciviously against his, the heat of her against his skin and the touch of her lips wandering up the side of his neck suddenly intruded into the present, a flash added of Mistress’ cold fingers affectionately down his flank swiftly following. * _ Oh, Gods - Angelline -- _ *

Pyrrhus flinched violently away from both remembered sensations, ripping out from under Rael’s touch. His reflexes, not yet caught up with the state of his body, flung him four or five feet across the room before his weakened legs gave out from under him. He dropped to knees and elbows with a sharp gasp of pain. “I should’ve died! Rather than break my vows - I should have died. Will die--”

“Master ...!” After a moment’s shocked indecision, Rael scrambled over the bench and slid to her knees beside the Zenith. His face was drained and pale, eyes tight shut within the fresh bruise-dark circles of stress and pain and sleeplessness. Silent tears tracked over a jaw clenched so hard Rael thought his teeth would crack. The orichalcum embedded in his skin had gone dull and dark - tarnished by whatever inner turmoil had him. She touched his arm gingerly; he grimaced and fell slowly forward, pressing his face to the smooth floor. Behind them, his staff finally lost its battle with gravity and rolled off the bench smacking the marble with the booming  _ *bong _ * of a death knell.  “Master...? Please...”

“_Never_ call me that again. I cannot... A creature of broken honor doesn’t merit such a title.” 

Rael almost drew back, startled. Pyrrhus had never spoken to her in anything other than polite, vaguely friendly tones (even in the stress of undergoing tattooed torment) but this -- this was a heart-rending growl of misery. She felt her own eyes welling up, and the usual lump of throat-closing emotion forming in her chest. “M-- Lama Pyrrhus. Please... forgive me. If I’ve said something wrong... I didn’t mean... I--” 

Rael hugged his arm, child-like, and sniffed back tears. “You saved me... in the lift, and in every day going out to fight that evil.  You gifted me with this ... this whole new sense, this power; opened a world to me that I never would have reached on my own. You’re so above me - and yet you have never given me anything but kindness and respect, as if I were not a serf.”  She straightened and scooted to one side, gently drawing out one of his larger hands into both of hers. “For this, and more... you will always be my Master.”

“You don’t understand...” He pulled away. Rolling upwards, with his legs splayed in front of him and shoulders slumped, it was hard to see the confident, gentle hero she’d first met.  His hands lay limp in his lap. “I... There are three vows I live by - besides the one etched on my chest. To never speak an untruth. To never begin violence. To stay faithful to one woman alone.”

He met her eyes for the first time that morning; the bleached-indigo color of his darkened by grief and half-obscured by the straggled ends of his lately cropped hair. His voice turned brittle; a thin veneer over a self-loathsome tangle of despair and fury and guilt. “I broke it. Deliberately. With the full knowledge of what I was doing... but I couldn’t stop... I broke my vow to Angelline... with that Lunar. I would have killed Gaelen -- broken another vow --” Pyrrhus scrubbed at his face with the heels of his palms. “It’s broken... Can’t be fixed... ”

A tiny concerned noise escaped from Rael’s throat. She shifted towards him, held out her arms. Pyrrhus bowed his head again, letting himself fall into the offered comfort. Rael gently gathered him in, laying his head in the hollow of her shoulder - like she used to do every night with Lady Tepet Velin, her owner’s, children. 

There weren’t words to help her Master and friend heal; she could say anything and everything and it would be no use. So, she held him. Rocked, slowly, back and forth, as they both wept. He - for what had been lost and broken, for his failures and his weakness. She - for the pain of her friend, for the doom bearing down on them.

Essence shimmered around her in waves of soul-warming heat - a trick that Raksi had taught her in the weeks her Master had been gone - the scent of cinnamon, incense, and honey lingering in the air around her. 

So they remained, some time later, when Cathak Avram stepped from the lift into the room: Solar and mortal sprawled on the floor, cried out. Rael looked up, red-eyed and gritty, as the Dragonblooded approached. His eyes were wide in alarm, a hand reached out to his Master. She shook her head and squeezed the Zenith softly. 

“Master?” Avram dropped to one knee, his scale armor thunking against the marble. 

A deep shuddering sigh - a drowning man coming back to the shore - rose from behind the shelter of Rael’s arms, and Pyrrhus lifted his head, gazing past his follower with eyes gone flat and dark. “...what is it, Cathak?”

“The largest Wyld Hunt I’ve ever seen has entered the city - at least a Legion or two strong. I wouldn’t have troubled you - except no one can find Lady Raksi - and they’re asking for you. Specifically.” Avram’s brows wrinkled in concern. “Master, they didn’t sound as though they were here to help.”

“Hand me that staff?” Pyrrhus moved out from Rael’s support, reaching for the length of ironwood that Avram quickly put into his hands. With help from both of them, he got to his feet. “I’ll speak with them.”

“M-m.. Pyrrhus? Are you sure you’re...?” Rael reached out a hand tentatively as they started towards the lift; Pyrrhus’ arm draped over Avram’s shoulder and Avram’s arm around his Master in mutual support.  They turned slightly at her words.

“No. But it must suffice.” He managed a broken smile. “Thank you, Rael... for... being here.”

“Of course. You asked. My life is yours, Master,” she smiled, wobbly, in reply.


	16. The Humbling River

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A day after returning home, the army he'd requested before this story began finally appears. They have come to eradicate Anathema - and the Anathema they are bent on destroying is not the Deathlord, but Pyrrhus himself. He cannot refuse them without confirming their opinion of him, and so - broken, mind and body - he comes and submits to their judgement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This scene was mostly to cement Pyrrhus' new and altered appearance in my mind.

The army stood on the southern side of the Great Plaza - part of it, rather, as the rest spread in a disciplined sprawl down the mountain. The gate to Yu-Shan was to their left, illuminated by the morning sun and casting long shadows across the rubble behind it. To the north, upslope, most of Meru’s remaining mortals and a good number of its Dragonblooded defenders stood in a loose crowd; the two groups faced each other warily across the wide stone expanse.

There was a shifting knot of movement at the back of the crowd of Merians, travelling slowly toward the plaza. It burst open like a soap bubble, releasing Pyrrhus onto the plaza stone. He leaned heavily on his staff, having firmly left Avram behind in the crowd and insisting on staggering the last steps on his own.

To anyone who knew him, who had ever seen him before, his appearance was appalling.

His eyes stood out like bruises in a much paler face; tiny cuts striped diagonally across his face like a spray of red paint, and his nose bore the lumps of the recently-broken. Bandages wrapped his shoulders and chest; the orichalcum tattoos peaked out from beneath them. Showing starkly through the thin cloth just at his sternum was a round mark like an Eclipse caste symbol, with bent rays between the inner and outer circle. It looked charred, burned black into his skin.

He’d lost weight; his face had hollows in the cheeks and temples where none had been before, and his clothes hung just a little bit off on his frame. His shoulders were still broad, but the muscles had lost tone and that peculiar vigor of an active life. Where once a braid as long as his spine had hung there were now only ragged strands cut abruptly at jaw length, and he hadn’t bothered to tie them back or braid them as was his usual style. He also hadn’t shaved in weeks; a white-blonde scruff grew on his chin and the sides of his head that were normally perfectly smooth.

Both his wrists and lower legs were encased in a honeycombed rigid wrap of some kind, but it was clear he was recovering from serious breakage - the flesh was red and irritated, hundreds of tiny white marks pressing against the skin where bone shards had been drawn back under into place. The way he hung on his staff suggested such profound weakness he couldn’t even hold his own weight.

“I am Lama V’neef Pyrrhus, called Lightbringer. Who asks for me?” he called to the Wyld Hunt, and even his voice - once a calm, smooth, and confident tenor - had changed, rasping and deepening. It was the broken voice of someone screaming for too long with no relief, shredded by pain and fear, and it barely carried the distance.

<storium!>


End file.
